The things we do!

It was not a
pleasant laugh to hear. Worthy Hobson took his hat, and walked away,
brushing it round and round, and looking very confused. The Colonel
strode after him downstairs, and made him an awful bow at the hall door.
Never again did Hobson Newcome set foot in that Tyburnian mansion.
During the whole of that season of the testimonial the cocoa-nut figured
in an extraordinary number of banquets. The Colonel's hospitalities were
more profuse than ever, and Mrs. Clive's toilettes more brilliant. Clive,
in his confidential conversations with his friends, was very dismal and
gloomy. When I asked City news of our well-informed friend F. B., I am
sorry to say, his countenance became funereal. The B. B. C. shares, which
had been at an immense premium twelve months since, were now slowly
falling, falling.
"I wish," said Mr. Sherrick to me, "the Colonel would realise, even now,
like that Mr. Ratray who has just come out of the ship, and brought a
hundred thousand pounds with him.


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