Now ain't it hard that
she won't trust me with a single tea-spoon--ain't it ungentlemanlike,
Altamont? You know my lady's of low birth--that is--I beg your
pardon--hem--that is, it's most cruel of her not to show more
confidence in me. And the very servants begin to laugh--the dam
scoundrels! I'll break every bone in their great hulking bodies, curse
'em, I will. They don't answer my bell: and--and, my man was at
Vauxhall last night with one of my dress shirts and my velvet
waistcoat on, I know it was mine--the confounded impudent
blackguard--and he went on dancing before my eyes, confound him; I'm
sure he'll live to be hanged--he deserves to be hanged--all those
infernal rascals of valets."
He was very kind to Altamont now: he listened to the colonel's loud
stories when Altamont described how--when he was working his way home
once from New Zealand, where he had been on a whaling expedition--he
and his comrades had been obliged to shirk on board at night, to
escape from their wives, by Jove--and how the poor devils put out in
their canoes when they saw the ship under sail, and paddled madly
after her: how he had been lost in the bush once for three months in
New South Wales, when he was there once on a trading speculation: how
he had seen Boney at Saint Helena, and been presented to him with the
rest of the officers of the Indiaman of which he was a mate--to all
these tales (and over his cups Altamont told many of them; and, it
must be owned, lied and bragged a great deal) Sir Francis now listened
with great attention; making a point of drinking wine with Altamont at
dinner and of treating him with every distinction.
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