I did not send back the venison:  as why should I?  Gus was for sending it at once to Brough, our director; and the grapes and peaches to my aunt in Somersetshire.

“But no,” says I; “we’ll ask Bob Swinney and half-a-dozen more of our gents; and we’ll have a merry night of it on Saturday.”  And a merry night we had too; and as we had no wine in the cupboard, we had plenty of ale, and gin-punch afterwards.  And Gus sat at the foot of the table, and I at the head; and we sang songs, both comic and sentimental, and drank toasts; and I made a speech that there is no possibility of mentioning here, because, entre nous, I had quite forgotten in the morning everything that had taken place after a certain period on the night before.

CHAPTER IV

HOW THE HAPPY DIAMOND-WEARER DINES AT PENTONVILLE

I did not go to the office till half-an-hour after opening time on Monday.  If the truth must be told, I was not sorry to let Hoskins have the start of me, and tell the chaps what had taken place,—­for we all have our little vanities, and I liked to be thought well of by my companions.

When I came in, I saw my business had been done, by the way in which the chaps looked at me; especially Abednego, who offered me a pinch out of his gold snuff-box the very first thing.  Roundhand shook me, too, warmly by the hand, when he came round to look over my day-book, said I wrote a capital hand (and indeed I believe I do, without any sort of flattery), and invited me for dinner next Sunday, in Myddelton Square.  “You won’t have,” said he, “quite such a grand turn-out as with your friends at the West End”—­he said this with a particular accent—­“but Amelia and I are always happy to see a friend in our plain way,—­pale sherry, old port, and cut and come again.  Hey?”

I said I would come and bring Hoskins too.

He answered that I was very polite, and that he should be very happy to see Hoskins; and we went accordingly at the appointed day and hour; but though Gus was eleventh clerk and I twelfth, I remarked that at dinner I was helped first and best.  I had twice as many force-meat balls as Hoskins in my mock-turtle, and pretty nearly all the oysters out of the sauce-boat.  Once, Roundhand was going to help Gus before me; when his wife, who was seated at the head of the table, looking very big and fierce in red crape and a turban, shouted out, “ANTONY!” and poor R. dropped the plate, and blushed as red as anything.  How Mrs. R. did talk to me about the West End to be sure!  She had a “Peerage,” as you may be certain, and knew everything about the Drum family in a manner that quite astonished me.  She asked me how much Lord Drum had a year; whether I thought he had twenty, thirty, forty, or a hundred and fifty thousand a year; whether I was invited to Drum Castle; what the young ladies wore, and if they had those odious gigot sleeves which were just coming in then; and here Mrs. R. looked at a pair of large mottled arms that she was very proud of.