212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

376 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
Elysées, whom should they see in a fine open carriage but young
Twysden and Captain and Mrs. Woolcomb, to whom, as they
passed, Philip doffed his hat with a profound bow, and whom he
further saluted with a roar of immense laughter. Woolcomb must
have heard the peal. I daresay it brought a little blush into
Mrs. Woolcomb's cheek; and—and so, no doubt, added to the
many attractions of that elegant lady. I have no secrets about
my characters, and speak my mind about them quite freely. They
said that Woolcomb was the most jealous, stingy, ostentatious,
cruel little brute ; that he led his wife a dismal life. Well ? If
he did? I'm sure, I don't care. "There is that swaggering
bankrupt beggar Firmin!" cries the tawny bridegroom, biting his
moustache. " Impudent ragged blackguard," says Twysden minor,
" I saw him."
" Hadn't you better stop the carriage, and abuse him to himself,
and not to me?" says Mrs. Woolcomb languidly, flinging herself
back on her cushions.
" Go on, hang you ! Ally ! Vite !" cry the gentlemen in the
carriage to the laquais de place on the box.
" I can fancy you don't care about seeing him," resumes Mrs.
Woolcomb. " He has a violent temper, and I would not have you
quarrel for the world." So I suppose Woolcomb again swears at
the laquais de place: and the happy couple, as the saying is, roll
away to the Bois de Boulogne.
" What makes you laugh so ?" says little Charlotte fondly,
as she trips along by her lover's side.
" Because I am so happy, my dearest !" says the other, squeezing
to his heart the little hand that lies on his arm. As he
thinks on yonder woman, and then looks into the pure eager face
of the sweet girl beside him, the scornful laughter occasioned by
the sudden meeting which is just over hushes; and an immense
feeling of thankfulness fills the breast of the young man:—thankfulness
for the danger from which he has escaped, and for the blessed
prize which has fallen to him.
But Mr. Philip's walks were not to be all as pleasant as this
walk ; and we are now coming to a history of wet slippery roads,
bad times, and winter weather. All I can promise about this
gloomy part is, that it shall not be a long story. You will
acknowledge we made very short work with the love-making,
which I give you my word I consider to be the very easiest part
of the novel-writer's business. As those rapturous scenes between
the Captain and the heroine are going on, a writer who knows his
business may be thinking about anything else—about the ensuing
chapter, or about what he is going to have for dinner, or what you