HONEYW. But how! his lordship has been at Newmarket these ten days.
LOFTY. Indeed. Then Sir Gilbert Goose must have been most damnably mistaken. I had it of him.
MISS RICH. He! why Sir Gilbert and his family have been in the country this month.
LOFTY. This month! It must certainly be so—Sir Gilbert's letter did come to me from Newmarket, so that he must have met his lordship there; and so it came about. I have this letter about me; I'll read it to you (_Taking out a large bundle._) That's from Paoli of Corsica; that's from the Marquis of Squilachi. Have you a mind to see a letter from Count Poniatowski, now king of Poland—Honest Pon—— (_Searching._) O, sir, what are you here too? I'll tell you what, honest friend, if you have not absolutely delivered my letter to Sir William Honeywood, you may return it. The thing will do without him.
SIR WILL. Sir, I have delivered it, and must inform you, it was received with the most mortifying contempt.
CROAKER. Contempt! Mr. Lofty, what can that mean?
LOFTY. Let him go on, let him go on, I say. You'll find it come to something presently.
SIR WILL. Yes, sir, I believe you'll be amazed, if, after waiting some time in the ante-chamber; after being surveyed with insolent curiosity by the passing servants, I was at last assured, that Sir William Honeywood knew no such person, and I must certainly have been imposed upon.
LOFTY. Good; let me die, very good. Ha! ha! ha!
CROAKER. Now, for my life, I can't find out half the goodness of it.
CROAKER. No, for the soul of me; I think it was as confounded a bad answer, as ever was sent from one private gentleman to another.
LOFTY. And so you can't find out the force of the message? Why, I was in the house at that very time. Ha! ha! It was I that sent that very answer to my own letter. Ha! ha!
LOFTY.—"_Ay, stick it where you will; for, by the Lord, it cuts but a very poor figure where it sticks at present._"—_p._ 318. ]
LOFTY. In one word, things between Sir William and me, must be behind the curtain. A party has many eyes. He sides with Lord Buzzard; I side with Sir Gilbert Goose. So that unriddles the mystery.
CROAKER. And so it does, indeed, and all my suspicions are over.
LOFTY. Your suspicions? What, then, you have been suspecting, have you? Mr. Croaker, you and I were friends; we are friends no longer. Never talk to me. It's over; I say, it's over.