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A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY 69
" Issy, Monsieur Donnerwetter : ally dimandy ung pew d'o sho
poor mwaw.
"Et de l'eau de fie afec, n'est-ce-bas, Matame?" said Mr.
Donnerwetter.
" Wee, wee, comme vous vouly."
And Donnerwetter knew very well what " comme vous vouly "
meant, and brought the liquor exactly in the wished-for state.
" Ah, Runt, Runt ! there's something even worse than seasickness.
Heigh-ho !"
"Dear dear Marianne, don't flutter yourself," cries Runt,
squeezing a fat paw of her friend and patroness between her own
bony fingers. " Don't agitate your nerves, dear. I know you're
miserable ; but haven't you got a friend in your faithful Runty ?"
"You're a good creater, that you are," said the fat lady, who
seemed herself to be a good-humoured old soul ; " and I don't know
what I should have done without you. Heigh-ho ! "
" Cheer up, dear ! you'll be happier when you get to Margate :
you know you will," cried Runt, very knowingly.
" What do you mean, Elizabeth ?"
"You know very well, dear Marianne. I mean that there's
some one there will make you happy ; though he's a nasty wretch,
that he is, to have treated my darling beautiful Marianne so."
" Runt, Runt, don't abuse that best of men. Don't call me
beautiful—I'm not, Runt ; I have been, but I ain't now ; and oh !
no woman in the world is assy bong poor lui."
" But an angel is ; and you are, as you always was, an angel,
—as good as an angel, as kind as an angel, as beautiful as one."
"Ally dong," said her companion, giving her a push; "you
flatter me, Runt, you know you do."
" May I be struck down dead if I don't say the truth ; and if
he refuses you, as he did at Rome,—that is, after all his attentions
and vows, he's faithless to you,—I say he's a wretch, that he is ;
and I will say he's a wretch, and he is a wretch—a nasty wicked
wretch !"
" Elizabeth, if you say that, you'll break my heart, you will !
Vous casserez mong pover cure." But Elizabeth swore, on the
contrary, that she would die for her Marianne, which consoled the
fat lady a little.
A great deal more of this kind of conversation took place during
the voyage ; but as it occurred inside a carriage, so that to hear it
was very difficult, and as possibly it was not of that edifying nature
which would induce the reader to relish many chapters of it, we
shall give no further account of the ladies' talk : suffice it to say, that
about half-past four o'clock the journey ended by the vessel bring-