te? Now what are you going to do for my friend Archie Clavering?"

"Oh-h-h!" exclaimed Sophie.

"Yes. What are you going to do for my friend Archie Clavering? Seventy
pounds, you know, ma'am, is a smart bit of money!"

"A smart bit of money, is it? That is what you think on your leetle
property down in Warwickshire."

"It isn't my property, ma'am, at all. It belongs to my uncle."

"Oh, it is your uncle that has the leetle property. And what had your
uncle to do with Lady Ongar? What is your uncle to your friend Archie?"

"Nothing at all, ma'am; nothing on earth."

"Then why do you tell me all this rigmarole about your uncle and his
leetle property, and Warwickshire? What have I to do with your uncle?
Sir, I do not understand you--not at all. Nor do I know why I have the
honor to see you here, Captain Bood-dle."

Even Doodles, redoubtable as he was--even he, with all his smartness,
felt that he was overcome, and that this woman was too much for him. He
was altogether perplexed, as he could not perceive whether in all her
tirade about the little property she had really misunderstood him, and
had in truth thought that he had been talking about his uncle, or
whether the whole thing was cunning on her part. The reader, perhaps,
will have a more correct idea of this lady than Captain Boodle had been
able to obtain. She had now risen from her sofa, and was standing as
though she expected him to go; but he had not as yet opened the budget
of his business.

"I am here, ma'am," said he, "to speak to you about my friend, Captain
Clavering."

"Then you can go back to your friend, and tell him I have nothing to
say. And, more than that, Captain Booddle"--the woman intensified the
name in a most disgusting manner, with the evident purpose of annoying
him; of that he had become quite sure--"more than that, his sending you
here is an impertinence. Will you tell him that?"

"No, ma'am, I will not."

"Perhaps you are his laquais," continued the inexhaustible Sophie, "and
are obliged to come when he send you?"

"I am no man's laquais, ma'am."

"If so, I do not blame you; or, perhaps, it is your way to make your
love third or fourth hand down in Warwickshire?"

"Damn Warwickshire!" said Doodles, who was put beyond himself.

"With all my heart. Damn Warwickshire." And the horrid woman grinned at
him as she repeated his words. "And the leetle property, and the uncle,
if you wish it; and the leetle nephew--and the leetle ne