第52章 WHICH EMBRACES A PERIOD OF SEVEN YEARS.(16)

Mr. Billings when he said this came forward to the Count with a theatrical air; and, flinging down the breeches of which he was the bearer, held out his arms and stared, having very little doubt but that his Lordship would forthwith spring out of bed and hug him to his heart. A similar piece of naivete many fathers of families have, I have no doubt, remarked in their children; who, not caring for their parents a single doit, conceive, nevertheless, that the latter are bound to show all sorts of affection for them. His lordship did move, but backwards towards the wall, and began pulling at the bell-rope with an expression of the most intense alarm.

"Keep back, sirrah!--keep back! Suppose I AM your father, do you want to murder me? Good heavens! how the boy smells of gin and tobacco! Don't turn away, my lad; sit down there at a proper distance. And, La Rose, give him some eau-de-Cologne, and get a cup of coffee. Well, now, go on with your story. Egad, my dear Abbe, Ithink it is very likely that what the lad says is true.""If it is a family conversation," said the Abbe, "I had better leave you.""Oh, for Heaven's sake, no! I could not stand the boy alone. Now, Mister ah!--What's-your-name? Have the goodness to tell your story."Mr. Billings was woefully disconcerted; for his mother and he had agreed that as soon as his father saw him he would be recognised at once, and, mayhap, made heir to the estates and title; in which being disappointed, he very sulkily went on with his narrative, and detailed many of those events with which the reader has already been made acquainted. The Count asked the boy's mother's Christian name, and being told it, his memory at once returned to him.

"What! are you little Cat's son?" said his Excellency. "By heavens, mon cher Abbe, a charming creature, but a tigress--positively a tigress. I recollect the whole affair now. She's a little fresh black-haired woman, a'n't she? with a sharp nose and thick eyebrows, ay? Ah yes, yes!" went on my Lord, "I recollect her, I recollect her. It was at Birmingham I first met her: she was my Lady Trippet's woman, wasn't she?""She was no such thing," said Mr. Billings, hotly. "Her aunt kept the 'Bugle Inn' on Waltham Green, and your Lordship seduced her.""Seduced her! Oh, 'gad, so I did. Stap me, now, I did. Yes, Imade her jump on my black horse, and bore her off like--like Aeneas bore his wife away from the siege of Rome! hey, l'Abbe?""The events were precisely similar," said the Abbe. "It is wonderful what a memory you have!""I was always remarkable for it," continued his Excellency. "Well, where was I,--at the black horse? Yes, at the black horse. Well, Imounted her on the black horse, and rode her en croupe, egad--ha, ha!--to Birmingham; and there we billed and cooed together like a pair of turtle-doves: yes--ha!--that we did!""And this, I suppose, is the end of some of the BILLINGS?" said the Abbe, pointing to Mr. Tom.

"Billings! what do you mean? Yes--oh--ah--a pun, a calembourg. Fi donc, M. l'Abbe." And then, after the wont of very stupid people, M. de Galgenstein went on to explain to the Abbe his own pun.

"Well, but to proceed," cries he. "We lived together at Birmingham, and I was going to be married to a rich heiress, egad! when what do you think this little Cat does? She murders me, egad! and makes me manquer the marriage. Twenty thousand, I think it was; and I wanted the money in those days. Now, wasn't she an abominable monster, that mother of yours, hey, Mr. a--What's-your-name?""She served you right!" said Mr. Billings, with a great oath, starting up out of all patience.

"Fellow!" said his Excellency, quite aghast, "do you know to whom you speak?--to a nobleman of seventy-eight descents; a count of the Holy Roman Empire; a representative of a sovereign? Ha, egad!

Don't stamp, fellow, if you hope for my protection.""D--n your protection!" said Mr. Billings, in a fury. "Curse you and your protection too! I'm a free-born Briton, and no ---- French Papist! And any man who insults my mother--ay, or calls me feller--had better look to himself and the two eyes in his head, I can tell him!" And with this Mr. Billings put himself into the most approved attitude of the Cockpit, and invited his father, the reverend gentleman, and Monsieur la Rose the valet, to engage with him in a pugilistic encounter. The two latter, the Abbe especially, seemed dreadfully frightened; but the Count now looked on with much interest; and, giving utterance to a feeble kind of chuckle, which lasted for about half a minute, said,--"Paws off, Pompey! You young hangdog, you--egad, yes, aha! 'pon honour, you're a lad of spirit; some of your father's spunk in you, hey? I know him by that oath. Why, sir, when I was sixteen, I used to swear--to swear, egad, like a Thames waterman, and exactly in this fellow's way! Buss me, my lad; no, kiss my hand. That will do"--and he held out a very lean yellow hand, peering from a pair of yellow ruffles. It shook very much, and the shaking made all the rings upon it shine only the more.

"Well," says Mr. Billings, "if you wasn't a-going to abuse me nor mother, I don't care if I shake hands with you. I ain't proud!"The Abbe laughed with great glee; and that very evening sent off to his Court a most ludicrous spicy description of the whole scene of meeting between this amiable father and child; in which he said that young Billings was the eleve favori of M. Kitch, Ecuyer, le bourreau de Londres, and which made the Duke's mistress laugh so much that she vowed that the Abbe should have a bishopric on his return: for, with such store of wisdom, look you, my son, was the world governed in those days.