‘No, madam,’ said he, ‘you had my injunctions to the contrary.’
‘La!’ she exclaimed, ‘I thought I was to run about in the fields now and then to preserve my simplicity. I know I was told so, and who told me!’
Mr. Beamish bowed effusively to the introduction of Caseldy, whose fingers he touched in sign of the renewal of acquaintance, and with a laugh addressed the duchess:
‘Madam, you remind me of a tale of my infancy. I had a juvenile comrade of the tenderest age, by name Tommy Plumston, and he enjoyed the privilege of intimacy with a component urchin yclept Jimmy Clungeon, with which adventurous roamer, in defiance of his mother’s interdict against his leaving the house for a minute during her absence from home, he departed on a tour of the district, resulting, perhaps as a consequence of its completeness, in this, that at a distance computed at four miles from the maternal mansion, he perceived his beloved mama with sufficient clearness to feel sure that she likewise had seen him. Tommy consulted with Jimmy, and then he sprang forward on a run to his frowning mama, and delivered himself in these artless words, which I repeat as they were uttered, to give you the flavour of the innocent babe: he said, “I frink I frought I hear you call me, ma! and Jimmy Clungeon, he frought he frink so too!” So, you see, the pair of them were under the impression that they were doing right. There is a delicate distinction in the tenses of each frinking where the other frought, enough in itself to stamp sincerity upon the statement.’
Caseldy said, ‘The veracity of a boy possessing a friend named Clungeon is beyond contest.’
Duchess Susan opened her eyes. ‘Four miles from home! And what did his mother do to him?’
‘Tommy’s mama,’ said Mr. Beamish, and with the resplendent licence of the period which continued still upon tolerable terms with nature under the compromise of decorous ‘Oh-fie!’ flatly declared the thing she did.
‘I fancy, sir, that I caught sight of your figure on the hill yonder about an hour or so earlier,’ said Caseldy to Mr. Camwell.
‘If it was at the time when you were issuing from that wood, sir, your surmise is correct,’ said the young gentleman.
‘Our Chloe will distinguish you accurately at a mile, and has done it,’ observed Mr. Beamish.