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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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754 imploringly on one side, and his right hand on his breast. ‘Oh, do sip the goblet!’ ‘I shall not consent to do anything of the kind, sir,’ said Mrs Nickleby. ‘Pray, begone.’ ‘Why is it,’ said the old gentleman, coming up a step higher, and leaning his elbows on the wall, with as much complacency as if he were looking out of window, ‘why is it that beauty is always obdurate, even when admiration is as honourable and respectful as mine?’ Here he smiled, kissed his hand, and made several low bows. ‘Is it owing to the bees, who, when the honey season is over, and they are supposed to have been killed with brimstone, in reality fly to Barbary and lull the captive Moors to sleep with their drowsy songs? Or is it,’ he added, dropping his voice almost to a whisper, ‘in consequence of the statue at Charing Cross having been lately seen, on the Stock Exchange at midnight, walking arm- in-arm with the Pump from Aldgate, in a riding-habit?’ ‘Mama,’ murmured Kate, ‘do you hear him?’ ‘Hush, my dear!’ replied Mrs Nickleby, in the same tone of voice, ‘he is very polite, and I think that was a quotation from the poets. Pray, don’t worry me so--you’ll pinch my arm black and blue. Go away, sir!’ ‘Quite away?’ said the gentleman, with a languishing look. ‘Oh! quite away?’ ‘Yes,’ returned Mrs Nickleby, ‘certainly. You have no business here. This is private property, sir; you ought to know that.’ ‘I do know,’ said the old gentleman, laying his finger on his nose, with an air of familiarity, most reprehensible, ‘that this is a sacred and enchanted spot, where the most divine charms’--here he kissed his hand and bowed again--‘waft mellifluousness over |
