“I have not that honor myself.”

“Oh, you have not; and do you want to be introduced?”

“Not exactly—­not at present; at some future day I shall hope to have the pleasure.  But I am right in believing that she and you are very intimate?  Now what are you going to do for my friend Archie Clavering?”

“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Sophie.

“Yes.  What are you going to do for my friend Archie Clavering?  Seventy pounds, you know, ma’am, is a smart bit of money!”

“A smart bit of money, is it?  That is what you think on your leetle property down in Warwickshire.”

“It isn’t my property, ma’am, at all.  It belongs to my uncle.”

“Oh, it is your uncle that has the leetle property.  And what had your uncle to do with Lady Ongar?  What is your uncle to your friend Archie?”

“Nothing at all, ma’am; nothing on earth.”

“Then why do you tell me all this rigmarole about your uncle and his leetle property, and Warwickshire?  What have I to do with your uncle?  Sir, I do not understand you—­not at all.  Nor do I know why I have the honor to see you here, Captain Bood-dle.”

Even Doodles, redoubtable as he was—­even he, with all his smartness, felt that he was overcome, and that this woman was too much for him.  He was altogether perplexed, as he could not perceive whether in all her tirade about the little property she had really misunderstood him, and had in truth thought that he had been talking about his uncle, or whether the whole thing was cunning on her part.  The reader, perhaps, will have a more correct idea of this lady than Captain Boodle had been able to obtain.  She had now risen from her sofa, and was standing as though she expected him to go; but he had not as yet opened the budget of his business.

“I am here, ma’am,” said he, “to speak to you about my friend, Captain Clavering.”

“Then you can go back to your friend, and tell him I have nothing to say.  And, more than that, Captain Booddle”—­the woman intensified the name in a most disgusting manner, with the evident purpose of annoying him; of that he had become quite sure—­“more than that, his sending you here is an impertinence.  Will you tell him that?”

“No, ma’am, I will not.”

“Perhaps you are his laquais,” continued the inexhaustible Sophie, “and are obliged to come when he send you?”

“I am no man’s laquais, ma’am.”

“If so, I do not blame you; or, perhaps, it is your way to make your love third or fourth hand down in Warwickshire?”

“Damn Warwickshire!” said Doodles, who was put beyond himself.