Then having arranged a shake-down for his master in Sir Abraham’s study—­for the guardian would not leave his dear one ever again—­Saunders went home, purposing to attend with razors in the morning.

CHAPTER XVIII.

INTERCALARY.

THE Tamworths did not altogether live at Burleigh Singleton—­it was far too petty a place for them; dullness all the year round (however pleasant for a month or so, as a holiday from toilsome pleasures) would never have done for Lady Tamworth and her daughters:  but they regularly took Prospect House for six weeks in the summer season, when tired of Portland Place, and Huntover, their fine estate in Cheshire:  and so, from constant annual immigration, came as much to be regarded Burleighites, as swifts and swallows to be ranked as British birds.  I only hint at this piece of information, for fear any should think it unlikely, that grandees of Sir Abraham’s condition could exist for ever in a place where the day-before-yesterday’s ‘Times’ is first intelligence.

Moreover, as another interjectional touch, it is only due to my life-likenesses to record, that Mrs. Green’s, although a terrace-house, and ranked as humble number seven, was, nevertheless, a tolerably spacious mansion, well suited for the dignity of a butler to repose in:  for Mrs. Green had added an entire dwelling on the inland side, as, like most maritime inhabitants, she was thoroughly sick of the sea, and never cared to look at it, though living there still, from mere disinclination to stir:  so, then, it was quite a double house, both spacious and convenient.  As for the inglorious incident of Julian’s latch-key, I should not wonder if many wide street-doors to many marble halls are conscious of similar convenient fastenings, if gentlemen of Julian’s nocturnal tastes happen to be therein dwelling.  Another little matter is worth one word.  The house had been Mrs. Green’s, a freehold, and was, therefore, now her heir’s; but the general, as an executor, remained there still, until his business was finished; in fact, he took his year’s liberty.

He had returned from India rolling in gold; for some great princess or other—­I think they called her a Begum or a Glumdrum, or other such like Gulliverian appellative—­had been singularly fond of him, and had loaded him in early life with favours—­not only kisses, and so forth, but jewellery and gold pagodas.  And lately, as we know, Puttymuddyfudgepoor, with its radiating rajahs and nabobs, had proved a mine of wealth:  for a crore is ten lacs, and a lac of rupees is any thing but a lack of money—­although rupees be money, and the “middle is distributed;” in spite of logic, then, a lack means about twelve thousand pounds:  and four of them, according to Cocker, some fifty thousand.  It would appear then, that with the produce of the Begum’s diamonds, converted into money long ago, and some of them as big as linnet’s eggs—­and not to take account of Mrs. Green’s trifling pinch of the five Exchequer bills, all handed over at once to Emily—­the General’s present fortune was exactly one hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds.