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Lady Bullingdon was astounded to learn that this afflicted being had put himself forward as one of the suitors of the girl in question. Lady Bullingdon's nephew interviewed the wretch upon the point, telling him that he was a `donkey' to dream of such a thing, and actually received, along with an imbecile grin, the answer that donkeys generally go after carrots.
Runt, young Lord Bullingdon's governor, was fond of pleasure, of a glass of Rhenish in the garden-houses in the summer evenings, and of a sly throw of the dice when the occasion offered; and I took care to make friends with this person, who, being a college tutor and an Englishman, was ready to go on his knees to any one who resembled a man of fashion.
They not only would not visit at Hackton, but declined to receive those who visited us; they kept the women of the county from receiving my wife: they invented half the wild stories of my profligacy and extravagance with which the neighbourhood was entertained; they said I had frightened my wife into marriage, and that she was a lost woman; they hinted that Bullingdon's life was not secure under my roof, that his treatment was odious, and that I wanted to put him out of the way to make place for Bryan my son.
It was long before we heard of the fate of the audacious young truant; but after some fifteen months had elapsed, I had the pleasure of being able to refute some of the murderous calumnies which had been uttered against me, by producing a bill with Bullingdon's own signature, drawn from General Tarleton's army in America, where my company was conducting itself with the greatest glory, and with which my Lord was serving as a volunteer.
Lord Tiptoff would never believe that I would pay any bill, much more any bill of Lord Bullingdon's; old Lady Betty Grimsby, his sister, persisted in declaring the bill was a forgery, and the poor dear lord dead; until there came a letter to her Ladyship from Lord Bullingdon himself, who had been at New York at headquarters, and who described at length the splendid festival given by the officers of the garrison to our distinguished chieftains, the two Howes.
I determined to endow my darling boy Bryan with a property, and to this end cut down twelve thousand pounds' worth of timber on Lady Lyndon's Yorkshire and Irish estates: at which proceeding Bullingdon's guardian, Tiptoff, cried out, as usual, and swore I had no right to touch a stick of the trees; but down they went; and I commissioned my mother to repurchase the ancient lands of Ballybarry and Barryogue, which had once formed part of the immense possessions of my house.
Thus my loyalty to my Sovereign was actually construed into a horrid unnatural attempt on my part on Bullingdon's life; and it was said that I had raised the American corps for the sole purpose of getting the young Viscount to command it, and so of getting rid of him.
There is something very peculiar and suggestive about the names of these women. Mr. Trip, you will remember, said he thought the typewriter's name was Blake, but could not remember exactly. I suggest that it might have been Black, and in that case we have a curious series: Miss Green in Lady Bullingdon's village; Miss Brown at the Hendon School; Miss Black at the publishers.
Was the typewriter an Eskimo? So picturesque a circumstance would not surely have escaped remark. Was Lady Bullingdon's dressmaker a negress? A voice in my bosom answers, `No! Lady Bullingdon, I am sure, would think a negress so conspicuous as to be almost Socialistic, and would feel something a little rakish even about an albino.
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