III

HOW THE POSSESSOR OF THE DIAMOND IS WHISKED INTO A MAGNIFICENT CHARIOT,
AND HAS YET FURTHER GOOD LUCK

I sat on the back seat of the carriage, near a very nice young lady,
about my dear Mary's age--that is to say, seventeen and three-quarters;
and opposite us sat the old Countess and her other
grand-daughter--handsome too, but ten years older. I recollect I had on
that day my blue coat and brass buttons, nankeen trousers, a white sprig
waist-coat, and one of Dando's silk hats, that had just come in in the
year '22, and looked a great deal more glossy than the best beaver.

"And who was that hidjus manster"--that was the way her Ladyship
pronounced,--"that ojous vulgar wretch, with the iron heels to his boots,
and the big mouth, and the imitation goold neck-chain, who _steered_ at
us so as we got into the carriage?"

How she should have known that Gus's chain was mosaic I can't tell; but
so it was, and we had bought it for five-and-twenty and sixpence only the
week before at M'Phail's, in St. Paul's Churchyard. But I did not like
to hear my friend abused, and so spoke out for him--

"Ma'am," says I, "that young gentleman's name is Augustus Hoskins. We
live together; and a better or more kind-hearted fellow does not exist."

"You are quite right to stand up for your friends, sir," said the second
lady; whose name, it appears, was Lady Jane, but whom the grandmamma
called Lady Jene.

"Well, upon me conscience, so he is now, Lady Jene; and I like sper't in
a young man. So his name is Hoskins, is it? I know, my dears, all the
Hoskinses in England. There are the Lincolnshire Hoskinses, the
Shropshire Hoskinses: they say the Admiral's daughter, Bell, was in love
with a black footman, or boatswain, or some such thing; but the world's
so censorious. There's old Doctor Hoskins of Bath, who attended poor
dear Drum in the quinsy; and poor dear old Fred Hoskins, the gouty
General: I remember him as thin as a lath in the year '84, and as active
as a harlequin, and in love with me--oh, how he was in love with me!"

"You seem to have had a host of admirers in those days, Grandmamma?" said
Lady Jane.

"Hundreds, my dear,--hundreds of thousands. I was the toast of Bath, and
a great beauty, too: would you ever have thought it now, upon your
conscience and without flattery, Mr.-a-What-d'ye-call-'im?"

"Indeed, ma'am, I never should," I answered, for the old lady was as ugly
as possible; and at my saying this the t