Lady Maude's Mania

“I trust milady recovers herself from the dreadful shock.”

Tom screwed his soapy head round, to stare in the bland, unruffled countenance of Monsieur Hector, who bowed, and gently returned his client’s head to its proper position.

“What the deuce do you know about my lady’s shock?” growled Tom.

“Monsieur forgets that I am the confidential attendant of the family,” said Monsieur Hector with dignity.

“So I did, and of Mademoiselle Justine too. But I smell a rat. You hatch plots here.”

“Aha, monsieur knows?”

“Yes,” said Tom, “I know. Could you manage me an organ if I wanted to go to play to a lady – say in Portland Place?”

Monsieur Hector smiled and tripped to a drawer, out of which he took a black wig and full beard to match.

“If monsieur will entrust himself to my care, I will in ten minutes change his complexion and his appearance so that her ladyship should not know him.”

“And find me an organ?”

“A thousand, if monsieur wishes,” said the Frenchman. “I am at his service when he say.”

“Then give me a clean towel;” said Tom, “my left ear is bunged up with soap.

“I’ll come if ever I want your help,” he added as he ran a covered finger through the intricate mazes of his ear.

“I am to monsieur,” said the Frenchman, bowing.

But Tom had no occasion to proceed to musical extremities, for as time went on, and no suitable match offered itself for Tryphie, her ladyship gave way.

“I never could have believed it, Tom, my boy,” said his lordship one night at the club, “you always do get the better of her ladyship. This is a doosed nice glass of port.”

“Yes, gov’nor, have another.”

“Eh? Well, I will just one, Tom, in honour of your wedding, Tom, and – damn the gout, eh?”

“To be sure, gov’nor.”

“Bless little Tryphie,” continued the old man; “she never had much money, but she lent me all she had when I was short, and she’s down for a thousand times as much in my will. Her ladyship can’t touch that; and – ”

Just then an organ sounded in the square, and his lordship stopped his ears.

“No, no, gov’nor, it’s only music, and I like that. Here’s Maude,” he said, filling his glass, “and may she never be more mad.”

“Yes, my dear boy, our darling Maude!”

“And never,” continued the viscount, “find a worse strait waistcoat than her husband’s arms.”