"I beg your pardon, sir," says Bowls, advancing with a profound bow;
"what 'otel, sir, shall Thomas fetch the luggage from?"
"O, dam," said young James, starting up, as if in some alarm, "I'll go."
"What!" said Miss Crawley.
"The Tom Cribb's Arms," said James, blushing deeply.
Miss Crawley burst out laughing at this title. Mr. Bowls gave one
abrupt guffaw, as a confidential servant of the family, but choked the
rest of the volley; the diplomatist only smiled.
"I--I didn't know any better," said James, looking down. "I've never
been here before; it was the coachman told me." The young story-teller!
The fact is, that on the Southampton coach, the day previous,
James Crawley had met the Tutbury Pet, who was coming to Brighton to
make a match with the Rottingdean Fibber; and enchanted by the Pet's
conversation, had passed the evening in company with that scientific
man and his friends, at the inn in question.
"I--I'd best go and settle the score," James continued. "Couldn't think
of asking you, Ma'am," he added, generously.
This delicacy made his aunt laugh the more.
"Go and settle the bill, Bowls," she said, with a wave of her hand,
"and bring it to me."
Poor lady, she did not know what she had done! "There--there's a
little dawg," said James, looking frightfully guilty. "I'd best go for
him. He bites footmen's calves."
All the party cried out with laughing at this description; even Briggs
and Lady Jane, who was sitting mute during the interview between Miss
Crawley and her nephew: and Bowls, without a word, quitted the room.
Still, by way of punishing her elder nephew, Miss Crawley persisted in
being gracious to the young Oxonian. There were no limits to her
kindness or her compliments when they once began. She told Pitt he
might come to dinner, and insisted that James should accompany her in
her drive, and paraded him solemnly up and down the cliff, on the back
seat of the barouche. During all this excursion, she condescended to
say civil things to him: she quoted Italian and French poetry to the
poor bewildered lad, and persisted that he was a fine scholar, and was
perfectly sure he would gain a gold medal, and be a Senior Wrangler.
"Haw, haw," laughed James, encouraged by these compliments; "Senior
Wrangler, indeed; that's at the other shop."
"What is the other shop, my dear child?" said the lady.
"Senior Wranglers at Cambridge, not Oxford," said the scholar, with a
knowing air; and would probably have been more confidential, but that
suddenly there appeared on the cliff in a tax-cart, drawn by a bang-up
pony, dressed in white flannel coats, with mother-of-pearl buttons, his
friends the Tutbury Pet and the Rottingdean Fibber, with three other
gentlemen of their acquaintance, who all saluted poor James there in
the carriage as he sate. This incident damped the ingenuous youth's
spirits, and no word of yea or nay could he be induced to utter during
the rest of the drive.