O’WALKER (L.) I see you are, those nankeens of yours are the most uncomfortable looking things I ever saw, however, rather than disappoint you I’ll wait till you’re dry—I don’t know why I should—but I will.
BROWN. (R.) That tailor of yours, sir, hadn’t the ghost of a chance with you—you didn’t leave him a leg to stand on.
O’WALKER. No, I flatter myself I rather cooked his goose.
BROWN. Good, good, good again: if you will insist upon making yourself so damned agreeable, I shall be obliged to embrace you before I _am_ dry. I am the last man in the world to intrude upon any one, but if upon emerging into yonder crowded thoroughfare, our paths happen to lay in the same direction, we will walk together, and by the time we part, as I shall probably be dry, I can embrace you.
O’WALKER. (_impatiently_) Oh! confound it—there—(_flinging his arms round BROWN_) and now I’m off to Pimlico—what say you?
BROWN. I say wherever you go—Brown goes too. (_taking O’WALKER’S arm_)
BROWN. Brown! Barbican Brown! but perhaps you’ll have no objection to my taking Little Windmill Street in my way?
O’WALKER. (_aside_) Brown—Little Windmill Street!
BROWN. Just to buy a few cubas. (_taking out cigar case_)
O’WALKER. (_aside_) Brown—Little Windmill Street—cubas. (_snatches cigar case out of BROWN’S hand—takes out a cuba and examines it, aside_) This is one of Amelia Jones’s cubas—I’ll swear to it—he’s a Brown—he says he’s a Brown, and if a Brown, why not the “fondest of Brown’s,” if I could only make him the means of getting those infernal letters of mine back—I have it. (_aloud and suddenly seizing BROWN’S hand_) Brown, it is my painful duty instantly to plunge a dagger into your manly bosom. (_BROWN starts_) Don’t be alarmed, I speak figuratively—in other words—(_in a loud and mysterious whisper_) go elsewhere for your cubas.
O’WALKER. (_aside_) It _is_ the fondest of Brown’s. (_aloud in the same low earnest tone_) Brown, you are deceived.
BROWN. Hush! (_looking about him and then to O’WALKER_) don’t speak so loud—I’m afraid you’ll call me a sad dog when I unfold my tale—I shan’t be offended if you do—for I know I’m a shocking good-for-nothing rascal, but I can’t help it—that’s the melancholy part of it—I can’t help it. Listen! As I was sauntering about the West End one evening last week, I suddenly found that I had lost my way, and seeing a gentleman in a Highland dress standing outside the door of a tobacconist’s shop, in the act of taking a pinch of snuff, I accosted him and civilly asked him where I was; he didn’t think proper to reply, which I inferred from being a Highlander he didn’t understand English—consequently, I entered the shop, and there I beheld a sweet creature—I bought a cigar, and though I had never smoked before in all my life, I lighted it—I positively lighted it, and then I smoked and chatted, and chatted and smoked, till, as it was getting _rather_ late, and _I_ was getting very poorly, I took my leave of the fair creature and went home. I’m ashamed to say I was there again, the next day, and the next day, and the day after that; and as every pound of cigars I bought of her seemed to ingratiate me more and more in her good opinion, in less than a week I found I had laid in a sufficient stock to open a tobacconist’s shop of my own—in fact I became so fascinated—so charmed—so—so——