"So you have not got the better of your Spanish fancies, eh?" said he, for lack of something better to talk about; "the charming Paulina--that most rotund of elderly females, her mamma, and all that sort of thing?"
"What leads you to think so?" I asked languidly, as I lay stretched at length on the Windsor chairs, watching the smoke which ascended from my lips to the ceiling.
"You cannot mimic her, so don't attempt it, Jack; but how is it plain, eh?"
"As clear as when the right is in front, the left is the pivot."
"Dick Ramble, my boy, you are quite sad about her, and there is no use in attempting to conceal it," continued Slingsby.
"Not sad, exactly," said I, making an effort to look brave; "never was I fool enough to be sad about any woman yet; there are as good fish, &c., and as for the Spanish girl--try another Cuba, the box is beside you."
"Fill your glass, and push across the decanter; has not that bottle been a little corked, think you?"
"Perhaps--about this Spanish girl?" continued Jack doggedly.
"You were just on the point of remarking some thing."
"Only that her eyes were very fine, were they not?"
"For heaven's sake, Jack, don't begin that ever-lasting ditty!" said I, pettishly; "yes, Paulina's eyes were beautiful; they seemed, as the Spaniards say, to be in mourning for the murders they committed."
"A stale compliment," was Jack's retort to my interruption of a song with which he had favoured the mess every night since we left Southampton, for a small amount of vocal talent will go a long way to charm a mess-table; "she murdered you, however, with very little compunction; but to think of the doctor's botanising with the mother being mistaken for love-making--was it not glorious, Dick?"
"I have sometimes thought of a month's leave, just between musters," said I, without joining in Jack's boisterous laugh.
"A ride into Spain--say, as far as Seville; what do you think of it?"
"Seventy miles or more to help you to continue a flirtation begun in the casemates of Gibraltar. Thank you, Ramble; I would rather hold myself excused. I had a little adventure in Spain once before, and its devilish concomitants quite cured me of all taste for another; though if I had not lost this unlucky 500_l._ perhaps--"