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70 A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY
ing up at Margate Pier. The passengers poured forth, and hied
to their respective homes or inns. My Lord Cinqbars and his
companion (of whom we have said nothing, as they on their sides
had scarcely spoken a word the whole way, except "deuce-ace,"
"quater-tray," "sizes," and so on,—being occupied ceaselessly in
drinking bottled stout and playing backgammon) ordered their
luggage to be conveyed to " Wright's Hotel," whither the fat lady
and suite followed them. The house was vacant, and the best
rooms in it were placed, of course, at the service of the new comers.
The fat lady sailed out of her bedroom towards her saloon just as
Lord Cinqbars, cigar in mouth, was swaggering out of his parlour.
They met in the passage ; when, to the young lord's surprise, the
fat lady dropped him a low curtsey and said—
" Munseer le Vecomte de Cinq bars, sharmy de vous voir. Vous
vous rappelez de mwaw, n'est-ce-pas ? Je vous ai vew a Rome—
shay l'ambassadure, vous savy."
Lord Cinqbars stared her in the face, and pushed by her without
a word, leaving the fat lady rather disconcerted.
" Well, Runt, I'm sure," said she, " he need not be so proud ;
I've met him twenty times at Rome, when he was a young chap
with his tutor."
"Who the devil can that fat foreigner be?" mused Lord
Cinqbars. " Hang her, I've seen her somewhere ; but I'm cursed
if I understand a word of her jabber." And so, dismissing the
subject, he walked on to Brandon's.
" Dang it, it's a strange thing !" said the landlord of the hotel ;
"but both my Lord and the fat woman in Number Nine have
asked their way to Mother Gann's lodging,"—for so did he dare to
call that respectable woman !
It was true : as soon as Number Nine had eaten her dinner,
she asked the question mentioned by the landlord; and, as this
meal occupied a considerable time, the shades of evening had by
this time fallen upon the quiet city ; the silver moon lighted up the
bay, and, supported by a numerous and well-appointed train of gaslamps,
illuminated the streets of a town,—of autumn eves so
crowded and so gay ; of gusty April nights so desolate. At this
still hour (it might be half-past seven) two ladies passed the gates
of "Wright's Hotel," "in shrouding mantle wrapped, and velvet
cap." Up the deserted High Street toiled they, by gaping rows
of empty bathing-houses, by melancholy Jolly's French bazaar, by
mouldy pastrycooks, blank reading-rooms, by fishmongers who never
sold a fish, mercers who vended not a yard of ribbon—because, as
yet, the season was not come,—and Jews and Cockneys still
remained in town. At High Street's corner, near to Hawley