Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/318

 "Mr. Anthony's as good as delivered," she would say in the most optimistic manner. "I am most positively certain of it, yes, I am! I'm told that this Mr. Snark's a perfect wonder. They say he is as clever as the devil, only that he charges rather more. But I know it's not money that you will begrudge him!"

"Rather not," says I. "Let him but deliver my dearest Anthony, and I'll give him my estate in Berkshire."

I can well recall this celebrated person and the mode of his appearance. It was somewhat late in the evening of the sixteenth of the month that he came in great privacy to visit me. He was ushered into my boudoir and presented by the triumphant Mrs. Polly Emblem.

"This be the gentleman, your la'ship," says she, whilst the gentleman in question ducked and grinned.

In the dimness of the lamp I could just discern a man, extraordinary small, drest with a plain respectability, and had a pair of eyes set very close, and small and hard and twinkling as chips of glass. And such was the peril of my state of mind, and so precarious was the deed with which I was about to charge him, that I was quite rejoiced when I saw that Mr. Snark had a face of the most finished and perfect villainy. Here was a man that I might trust instinctively with any crime.

At first I was uncertain as to the precise fashion of my address, because the affair demanded some