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A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY 79
"Well, sir, I give you my honour," said Mr. Brandon, in a
diabolical rage; and added, "I'll meet you to-morrow, not now;
and you need not be afraid that I'll miss you !"
"Hadew, sir," said the chivalrous little Fitch; "bon giorno,
sir, as we used to say at Rome." And so, for the second time, he
left Mr. Brandon, who did not like very well the extraordinary
courage he had displayed.
"What the deuce has exasperated the fellow so?" thought
Brandon.
Why, in the first place, he had crossed Fitch in love ; and, in
the second, he had sneered at his pronunciation and his gentility,
and Fitch's little soul was in a fury which nothing but blood would
allay : he was determined, for the sake of his hart and his lady, to
bring this proud champion down.
So Brandon was at last left to his cogitations : when, confusion !
about five o'clock came another knock at his door.
" Come in !" growled the owner of the lodgings.
A sallow, blear-eyed, rickety, undersized creature, tottering
upon a pair of high-heeled lacquered boots, and supporting himself
upon an immense gold-knobbed cane, entered the room with his hat
on one side and a jaunty air. It was a white hat with a broad
brim, and under it fell a great deal of greasy lank hair that shrouded
the cheek-bones of the wearer. The little man had no beard to his
chin, appeared about twenty years of age, and might weigh, stick
and all, some seven stone. If you wish to know how this exquisite
was dressed, I have the pleasure to inform you that he wore a great
sky-blue embroidered satin stock, in the which figured a carbuncle
that looked like a lambent gooseberry. He had a shawl-waistcoat
of many colours ; a pair of loose blue trousers, neatly strapped to
show his little feet : a brown cutaway coat with brass buttons, that
fitted tight round a spider waist ; and over all a white or drab
surtout, with a sable collar and cuffs, from which latter on each
hand peeped five little fingers covered with lemon-coloured kid
gloves. One of these hands he held constantly to his little chest :
and, with a hoarse thin voice, he piped out—
" George my buck ! how goes it ?"
We have been thus particular in our description of the costume
of this individual (whose inward man strongly corresponded with
his manly and agreeable exterior) because he was the person whom
Mr. Brandon most respected in the world.
" CINQBARS !" exclaimed our hero : " why, what the deuce has
brought you to Margate ?"
" Fwendship, my old cock !" said the Honourable Augustus
Frederick Ringwood, commonly called Viscount Cinqbars, for indeed