Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/89

 the room of my papa. I call it very thoughtful of you to suppress my name in the manner that you do. Am I to suppose?" I inquired, with an eagerness that he noticed with a gleam of pleasure, "that you have treated my part in last night's affair as kindly in this document that you are now preparing?"

"Look, my dear lady, for yourself!" cries he, happy in his own adroitness. "I will wager that you shall not find your name once mentioned in it."

My gentleman handed five close-writ sheets of foolscap to me to examine for myself. I scanned every page, and saw that it was even as he said, and that the case, a black one in all conscience from the point of view of politics, and quite enough to hang even a peer of the realm upon, was made out entirely to the prejudice of his poor old lordship.

"'Tis true, Captain," says I, "that there is not a word of me within it. And last night at Cleeby without Bab Gossiter is like the tragedy of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. 'Tis utterly worthless, sir. As a truthful narrative it is inadequate, but is none the less a very pretty fairy-tale. But in this cold and unromantic age of Politics, pleasing fictions are popular. Therefore, dear Captain, I think it better that it were suppressed. And I do not doubt if it be any consolation to you, sir, for the futile pains you have spent upon this document, that one day all the Prime Ministers and Privy Councillors, and stout Whigs and arrant Tories, and every kind of politician that ever was or ever