You must call me Mrs. Marsh now; I am married."
By this time he had quite recovered himself, and offered her a chair
with ingratiating zeal.
"Sit down by me," said she, as if she was petting a child. "Are you
sure you remember me?"
Says the Courtier, "Who could forget you that had ever had the honor--"
Mrs. Marsh drew back with sudden hauteur. "I did not come here for
folly," said she. Then, rather naively, "I begin to doubt your being so
very mad."
"Mad? No, of course I am not."
"Then what brings you here?"
"Stumped."
"What, have I mistaken the house? Is it a jail?"
"Oh, no! I'll tell you. You see I was dipped pretty deep, and duns
after me, and the Derby my only chance; so I put the pot on. But a dark
horse won: the Jews knew I was done: so now it was a race which should
take me. Sloman had seven writs out: I was in a corner. I got a friend
that knows every move to sign me into this asylum. They thought it was
all up then, and he is bringing them to a shilling in the pound."
Before he could complete this autobiographical sketch Mrs. Marsh
started up in a fury, and brought her whip down on the table with a
smartish cut.
"You little heartless villain!" she screamed. "Is this, the way you
play upon people: bringing me from my home to console a maniac, and,
instead of that, you are only what you always were, a spendthrift and a
scamp? Finely they will laugh at me.
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