Chapter 2 - Page 2

I've met her. She was at Lucknow last season.
'Owned a permanently juvenile Mamma, and danced damnably. I
say, Jervoise, you knew the Threegans, didn't you?

JERVOISE. (Civilian of twenty-five years' service, waking up
from his doze.) Eh? What's that? Knew who? How? I thought I was
at Home, confound you!

MACKESY. The Threegan girl's engaged, so Blayne says.

JERVOISE. (Slowly.) Engaged-en-gaged! Bless my soul! I'm
getting an old man! Little Minnie Threegan engaged. It was only
the other day I went home with them in the Surat-no, the Massilia-
and she was crawling about on her hands and knees among the
ayahs. 'Used to call me the "Tick Tack Sakib" because I showed
her my watch. And that was in Sixty-Seven-no, Seventy. Good
God, how time flies! I'm an old man. I remember when Threegan
married Miss Derwent-daughter of old Hooky Derwent-but that
was before your time. And so the little baby's engaged to have a
little baby of her own! Who's the other fool?

MACKESY. Gadsby of the Pink Hussars.

JERVOISE. 'Never met him. Threegan lived in debt, married in
debt, and 'll die in debt. 'Must be glad to get the girl off his hands.

BLAYNE. Caddy has money-lucky devil. Place at Home, too.

DOONE. He comes of first-class stock. 'Can't quite understand
his being caught by a Colonel's daughter, and (looking cautiously
round room.) Black Infantry at that! No offence to you, Blayne.

BLAYNE. (Stiffly.) Not much, thaanks.

CURTISS. (Quoting motto of Irregular Moguls.) "We are what we
are," eh, old man? But Gandy was such a superior animal as a rule.
Why didn't he go Home and pick his wife there?

MACKESY. They are all alike when they come to the turn into
the straight. About thirty a man begins to get sick of living alone.

CURTISS. And of the eternal muttony-chop in the morning.

DOONE. It's a dead goat as a rule, but go on, Mackesy.

MACKESY. If a man's once taken that way nothing will hold him,
Do you remember Benoit of your service, Doone? They transferred
him to Tharanda when his time came, and he married a platelayer's
daughter, or something of that kind. She was the only female
about the place.

DONE. Yes, poor brute. That smashed Benoit's chances of
promotion altogether. Mrs. Benoit used to ask "Was you gem' to
the dance this evenin'?"

CURTISS. Hang it all! Gandy hasn't married beneath him. There's
no tarbrush in the family, I suppose.

JERVOISE. Tar-brush! Not an anna. You young fellows talk as
though the man was doing the girl an honor in marrying her.
You're all too conceited-nothing's good enough for you.

BLAYNE. Not even an empty Club, a dam' bad dinner at the
Judge's, and a