Whereupon I facetiously requested that he would address myself in future as "Mister Seventy-nine, Hereford Road, Bayswater," which stroke of wit occasioned inextinguishable merriment from Miss WEE-WEE, though it did not excite from the aforesaid laird so much as the smallest simper!
From an ingrained love of teasing, and also the natural desire to stimulate her appreciation of my superior fertility in small talk and _l'art de plaire_, I do often slyly contrive to inflict his sole society upon her--to the huge entertainment of her father and mother, who carry on the joke by assisting my manoeuvrings; but, although it affords me a flattering gratification to be plaintively upbraided by Miss WEE-WEE for my cruel desertion, I am resolved not to persist in such heartless pranks beyond her natural endurance.
Shortly after my arrival I heard from my host that he was the recipient of an invitation from a Mister BAGSHOT, Q.C., that he and his son HOWARD would accompany him to a shooting expedition upon some adjacent moors, and that, being now immoderately plump, and past his prime as a potshot, he had requested leave to nominate myself as his _budli_ or substitute, explaining that I was a young Indian prince of great prowess at every kind of big games.
Accordingly, to my great delight, it was arranged that I should take his place.
My young friend HOWARD, beholding me appear at the breakfast-table arrayed in my short kilt and superincumbent belly-purse with tassels, did entreat me to change myself into ordinary knickerbockers, lest I should catch death with a cold.
But I declined, disdaining such dangers, and assuring him that I did not at all dislike the excessive ventilation of my knees.
We drove to Mr BAGSHOT'S residence, Rowans Castle, in a hired machine, and found the gentlemen-shooters gathered outside the portico. Amongst the party I was pleased to observe Hon'ble Justice CUMMERBUND, who, when we were all ascended into the waggonette-break, did rally me very good-humouredly upon some mixed bag of elephants and tigers he had heard (or so he said) I had accomplished in some up-country jungle.
At first, knowing that this was the utter impossibility, I perspired with terror that he was making me the fool, but apparently he was himself under a misunderstanding, for when we had left the vehicle and were preparing to advance, he paid me the distinguished compliment of entreating that I might be awarded the command of one extremity of the line, while he himself was to preside over the opposite end!