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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 335
sending. A dreadful man! He was still at his Lordship's at
Gaberlunzie Castle, shooting the wild deer and hunting the roe. And
though the Honourable Mrs. B.'s heart was in the Highlands, of
course how could she join her Highland chief without the money to
pay Madame ? The Highlands, indeed ! One dull day it came out
that the Honourable Boldero was amusing himself in the Highlands
of Hesse Homburg ; and engaged in the dangerous sport which is to
be had in the green plains about Loch Baden-badenoch!
"Did you ever hear of such depravity? The woman is a
desperate and unprincipled adventuress ! I wonder Madame dares
to put me and my children and my General down at table with
such people as those, Philip!" cries Madame la Générale. "I
mean those opposite—that woman and her two daughters who
haven't paid Madame a shilling for three months—who owes
me five hundred francs, which she borrowed until next Tuesday,
expecting a remittance—a pretty remittance indeed—from Lord
Strongitharm. Lord Strongitharm, I daresay ! And she pretends to
be most intimate at the embassy ; and that she would introduce us
there, and at the Tuileries: and she told me Lady Garterton had
the small-pox in the house ; and when I said all ours had been
vaccinated, and I didn't mind, she fobbed me off with some other
excuse ; and it's my belief the woman's a humbug. Overhear me !
I don't care if she does overhear me. No. You may look as much
as you like, my Honourable Mrs. Boldero ; and I don't care if you
do overhear me. Ogoost ! Pomdytare pour le Géné'ral! How tough
Madame's boof is, and it's boof, boof, boof every day, till I'm sick
of boof. Ogoost! why don't you attend to my children ?" And
so forth.
By this report of the worthy woman's conversation, you will
see that the friendship which had sprung up between the two
ladies had come to an end, in consequence of painful pecuniary
disputes between them; that to keep a boarding-house can't be a
very pleasant occupation ; and that even to dine in a boarding-house
must be only bad fun when the company is frightened and dull, and
when there are two old women at table ready to fling the dishes at
each other's fronts. At the period of which I now write, I promise
you, there was very little of the piano-duet business going on after
dinner. In the first place, everybody knew the girls' pieces ; and
when they began, Mrs. General Baynes would lift up a voice louder
than the jingling old instrument, thumped Minna and Brenda ever
so loudly. " Perfect strangers to me, Mr. Clancy, I assure you.
Had I known her, you don't suppose I would have lent her the
money. Honourable Mrs. Boldero, indeed! Five weeks she has
owed me five hundred frongs. Bong swor, Monsieur Bidois! Sang