204 SOME GENTLKMAN^S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



" Nonsense ! your folly begins to disgust me. Drop it, I beg." 

 " Folly !" Mrs. Garnet. I don't think that at this time of my life, 

 equally removed as I am from the stages of first and second child- 

 hood, I am likely to act as an imbecile. Let us look my love, at our 

 relative positions. Your husband, Garnet, a rascally attorney, dies at 

 Gainsborough : you smother the circumstance, continue to take out 

 his certificate as though nothing had happened, and carry on his 

 business by means of an active managing clerk, giving out that Gar- 

 net, poor fellow, although his intellect continues vigorous as ever, is 

 bed-ridden, and not fit to be seen, at 'the cottage/ You don't even 

 administer, but enjoy his property without even paying the legacy or 

 probate duty. Indeed, you act as a woman of sense throughout. 

 Very well, all goes on swimmingly, until some impertinent puppy of 

 an attorney, who owes you a grudge, ventures to suspect that Garnet 

 is dead. The fellow carries his folly so far as to solicit a summons 

 for Garnet to appear and establish the fact of his existence. You 

 happen to meet with me ; you state the facts, and enveloped in Welsh 

 flannel, after having starved myself into a becoming paleness, I per- 

 sonate the deceased. Every body has forgotten me time and disease 

 have done much in altering my features I am judicially recognized, 

 and thenceforth commence my recovery. Now that I am hale and 

 hearty as ever I was in my life, you coolly talk of my trapesing off 

 to Edinburgh or elsewhere !" 



" Ha! ha! Dick," exclaimed Maria, playfully filliping my cheek; 

 " I see by your manner, that you meditate a bit of roguery, but no 

 matter, I shan't be nice to a shade ; at any rate we won't quarrel for 

 a trifle one way or the other, will we ?" 



" Certainly not ; but what do you mean by lugging the very offen- 

 sive substantive ' roguery' into our discussion ? Allow me to tell you, 

 Mrs. Garnet, that I have all along determined to act in this affair 

 strictly according to the dictates of my conscience. When I met you 

 in Tooley Street, after a long, and to me, most painful separation, I 

 had not a shirt to my back suchhadbeenmy indolence now thanks 

 to my exertions in your behalf. " 



" Well, well, I see your aim, but to the point at once. We lose 

 time, for if we talked for a thousand years we should not understand 

 each other better than we already do. The fact is, you're a poor 

 needy devil, willing to make the most of a wind- fall, and I don't 

 blame you ; for you can't well afford to oblige even so old a friend as 

 . myself, con amore or any thing like it. In mentioning fifty for con- 

 tingencies I spoke at hazard, and was not up to the mark, I admit. 

 But come, we wont higgle like hucksters : name your own price ; 

 there's my hand, Dick I give you a carte blanche for the bargain ; 

 but don't be unreasonable." 



"Unreasonable ! Egad, Mrs. Garnet, it's you who are unreasonable. 

 Do you think every spark of particular passion for yourself, of common 

 .gallantry for that sex which you so adorn, is dead within me ? In- 

 spect this lovely hand ! Reflect on your fine form for you are still 

 decidedly a beauty ". 



" Ha ! ha ! ha ! Oh, Dick ! Dick !" 



" Besides there are all the little elegant comforts the cab and 



