Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/126

 you. But it was not upon them I bent my attention; ’twas the little old gentleman as tickled me. For there he was fallen, limp, into a chair, snorting like a pig and mopping of his face, staring the while first at me and then at her ladyship, and sometimes in a bewildered way at Mrs Cynthia. Then, when the door had banged upon the fellows, her ladyship burst out a-laughing.

“Lard, Lard!” she cries, “Sure, I shall die of it all,” and tapping me on the shoulder, “My poor Ryder,” she says, “an’ that be what they call you, you have a taking presence and a rare possession. ’Sbud, but you make a handsome husband, and I an admirable wife to you.”

“Indeed, your ladyship,” I said, “I am sorely beholden to you; and a more elegant display of terrors I ha’n’t seen not upon any stage of Town.”

And then the old boy thrust in, getting his voice once more. “O my lady,” he says, “O my dearest charmer, what does this signify? Odds, but I am all amiss; and who is this fellow?”