By which it will be perceived that the Lady Sarah's knowledge of the great and mighty Republic beyond the seas was clearly limited. Such ignorance had often provoked the Archbishop of Bloomsbury to exasperation, it annoyed him not a little to-night.
"My dear child," he protested, "you are laboring under a very great delusion. Be assured that America is a very great country, where--er--hem--they may eat each other, but not as you imagine. I believe that the American ladies are very beautiful. I have met some of them--er--in the old days, when--hem--the Bishops showed their confidence in me by drinking my claret and finding it to their liking. All that we have in England they have in America--prisons, paupers, policemen, palaces. You are thinking of Africa, Sarah, darkest Africa, that used to be, but is fast disappearing. Led me add--"
Sarah, however, was already busy upon her dozen of oysters and had no patience to hear the good man out.
"Don't you take on so, Bishop," she intervened, "'Mericky ain't done much for me and precious little it's going ter do for you. What I says is, let those as have got a good 'ome stop there and be thankful. Yer may talk about your oshun wave, but I ain't taking any, no, not though there was diamonds on the sea beach the other side and 'ot-'arse roses fer nothink. Who ever sees their ole friends as is swallered up by the sea? Who ever heard of Alb Kennedy since he went ter Berling as he told us for to mike his fortune? Ho, a life on the oshun wave if yer like, but not for them as has bread and cheese ashore and a good bed to go to arterwards; that's what I shall say as long as I've breath in my body."
"Betty," the boy, answered to this earnest lamentation with a sound word of good common sense.
"You're a-goin' to sleep in one o' them boxes to-night, ain't you, Sarah?" he asked, and she admitted the truth of his conclusions.
"And sweeter dreams I would have if I knew where the Dook was a-layin' his 'ed this night," she added.
The Archbishop ate a succulent morsel and drank a long draught from the unadorned black bottle.
"Nothing is known of Kennedy at Hampstead," he interposed, "I have made diligent inquiries of the gardener there, and he assures me that our dear friend never returned from Poland and that no one knows anything of him, not even Mr. Gessner. Anna, the daughter, I understand, is married to an old acquaintance of ours and has taken a little house in Curzon Street. She liked to go the--er--hem--pace, as the people say; and she is mated to one who will not be afraid of exceeding the legal limits. Mr. Gessner himself is on his yacht, and is supposed to be cruising off the coast of Norway. That is what they tell me. I have no reason to doubt the truth of their information. Would to heaven I had. Kennedy was a friend, a true friend, while he was in England. I have known many a bitter night since he left us."