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The Disowned, a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
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Chapter 5 |
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_ CHAPTER V Your name, Sir!
Mr. Mordaunt, after seeing every attention paid to him both surgical and hospitable, took his departure with a promise to call the next day; leaving behind him a strong impression of curiosity and interest to serve our hero as some mental occupation until his return. The bonny landlady came up in a new cap, with blue ribbons, in the course of the evening, to pay a visit of inquiry to the handsome patient, who was removed from the Griffin, No. 4, to the Dragon, No. 8,--a room whose merits were exactly in proportion to its number, namely, twice as great as those of No. 4. "Well, sir," said Mrs. Taptape, with a courtesy, "I trust you find yourself better." "At this moment I do," said the gallant youth, with a significant air. "Hem," quoth the landlady. A pause ensued. In spite of the compliment, a certain suspicion suddenly darted across the mind of the hostess. Strong as are the prepossessions of the sex, those of the profession are much stronger. "Honest folk," thought the landlady, "don't travel with their initials only; the last 'Whitehall Evening' was full of shocking accounts of swindlers and cheats; and I gave nine pounds odd shillings for the silver teapot John has brought him up,--as if the delft one was not good enough for a foot traveller!" Pursuing these ideas, Mrs. Taptape, looking bashfully down, said,-- "By the by, sir; Mr. Bossolton asked me what name he should put down in his book for the medicines; what would you please me to say, sir?" "Mr. who?" said the youth, elevating his eyebrows. "Mr. Bossolton, sir, the apothecary." "Oh! Bossolton! very odd name that,--not near so pretty as--dear me, what a beautiful cap that is of yours!" said the young gentleman. "Lord, sir, do you think so? The ribbon is pretty enough; but--but, as I was saying, what name shall I tell Mr. Bossolton to put in his book?" "This," thought Mrs. Taptape, "is coming to the point." "Well!" said the youth, slowly, and as if in a profound reverie, "well, Bossolton is certainly the most singular name I ever heard; he does right to put it in a book: it is quite a curiosity! is he clever?" "Very, sir," said the landlady, somewhat sharply; "but it is your name, not his, that he wishes to put into his book." "Mine?" said the youth, who appeared to have been seeking to gain time in order to answer a query which most men find requires very little deliberation, "mine, you say; my name is Linden--Clarence Linden--you understand?" "What a pretty name!" thought the landlady's daughter, who was listening at the keyhole; "but how could he admire that odious cap of Ma's!" "And, now, landlady, I wish you would send up my boxes; and get me a newspaper, if you please." "Yes, sir," said the landlady, and she rose to retire. "I do not think," said the youth to himself, "that I could have hit on a prettier name, and so novel a one too!--Clarence Linden,--why, if I were that pretty girl at the bar I could fall in love with the very words. Shakspeare was quite wrong when he said,-- 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'" "A rose by any name would not smell as sweet; if a rose's name was Jeremiah Bossolton, for instance, it would not, to my nerves at least, smell of anything but an apothecary's shop!" When Mordaunt called the next morning, he found Clarence much better, and carelessly turning over various books, part of the contents of the luggage superscribed C. L. A book of whatever description was among the few companions for whom Mordaunt had neither fastidiousness nor reserve; and the sympathy of taste between him and the sufferer gave rise to a conversation less cold and commonplace than it might otherwise have been. And when Mordaunt, after a stay of some length, rose to depart, he pressed Linden to return his visit before he left that part of the country; his place, he added, was only about five miles distant from W----. Linden, greatly interested in his visitor, was not slow in accepting the invitation, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, Mordaunt was shaking hands with a stranger he had only known two days. _ |
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