Would you, do you think, ever have seen the inside of Satin Lodge, if
you hadn't"----

"Why, I don't know; I really think--hem!"

"_Would_ you, my dear sir?--But now a scheme occurs to me--a very
amusing idea indeed! Ah, ha, ha!--Shall I tell you a way of proving to
his own face how insincere and interested he is towards you? Go to
dinner by all means, eat his good things, hear all that the whole set of
them have to say, and just before you go, (it will require you to have
your wits about you,) pretend, with a long face, that our affair is all
a bottle of smoke: say that Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap have told
you the day before that they had made a horrid mistake, and you were the
wrong man"----

"'Pon my life, I--I--really," stammered Titmouse "daren't--I couldn't--I
couldn't keep it up--he'd half kill me. Besides, there will be Miss
Tag-rag--it would be the death of her, I know."

"Miss Tag-rag! Gracious Heavens! What on earth can you have to do with
_her_? _You_--why, if you really succeed in getting this fine property,
she might make a very suitable wife for one of your grooms--ah,
ha!--But for _you_--absurd!"

"Ah! I don't know--she may be a devilish fine girl, and the old fellow
will have a tolerable penny to leave her--and a bird in the hand--eh?
Besides, I know what she's all along thought--hem!--but that doesn't
signify."

"Pho! pho! Ridiculous! Ha, ha, ha! Fancy Miss Tag-rag Mrs. Titmouse!
Your eldest son--ah, ha, ha! Tag-rag Titmouse, Esq. Delightful! Your
honored father a draper in Oxford Street!" All this might be very
clever, but it did not seem to _tell_ upon Titmouse, whose little heart
had been reached by a cunning hint of Tag-rag's concerning his
daughter's flattering estimate of Titmouse's personal appearance. The
reason why Gammon attacked so seriously a matter which appeared so
chimerical and preposterous, was this--that according to his present
plan, Titmouse was to remain for some considerable while at Tag-rag's,
and might, with his utter weakness of character, be worked upon by
Tag-rag and his daughter, and get inveigled into an engagement which
might be productive hereafter of no little embarrassment. Gammon
succeeded, however, at length, in obtaining Titmouse's promise to adopt
his suggestion, and thereby discover the true nature of the feelings
entertained towards him at Satin Lodge. He shook Titmouse energetically
by the hand, and left him perfectly certain that if there was one per