Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green by Bede, Cuthbert, 1827-1889

"I say, old feller," said Mr. Bouncer, as he criticized Mr. Verdant Green's countenance over the bowl of his pipe, "you look rather in a stew! What's up? My gum!" cried the little gentleman, as an idea of the truth suddenly flashed upon him; "you don't mean to say you've been doing the spooney - what you call making love - have you?"

"Oh!" groaned the person addressed, as he followed out the train of his own ideas; "if you ~had~ but have come five minutes later - or not at all! It's most provoking!"

"Well, you're a grateful bird, I don't think!" said Mr. Bouncer. "Cut after her into luncheon, and have it out over the cold mutton and pickles!"

"Oh no!" responded the luckless lover; "I can't' eat - especially before the others! I mean - I couldn't talk to her before the others. Oh! I don't know what I'm saying."

"Well, I don't think you do, old feller!" said Mr. Bouncer, puffing away at his pipe. "I'm sorry I was in the road, though! because, though I fight shy of those sort of things myself, yet I don't want to interfere with the little weaknesses of other folks. But come and have a pipe, old feller, and we'll talk matters over, and see what pips are on the cards, and what's the state of the game."

Now, a pipe was Mr. Bouncer's panacea for every kind of indisposition, both mental and bodily.

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 251]

CHAPTER V.

MR. VERDANT GREEN MEETS WITH THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER.

MENTION had frequently been made by the members of the Honeywood family, but more especially by Miss Patty, of a cousin - a male cousin - to whom they all seemed to be exceedingly partial - far more partial, as Mr. Verdant Green thought, with regard to Miss Patty, than he would have wished her to have been. This cousin was Mr. Frank Delaval, a son of their father's sister. According to their description, he possessed good looks, and an equivalently good fortune, with all sorts of accomplishments, both useful and ornamental; and was, in short (in their eyes at least), a very admirable Crichton of the nineteenth century.

Mr. Verdant Green had heard from Miss Patty so much of her cousin Frank, and of the pleasure they were anticipating from a visit he had promised shortly to make to them, that he had at length begun to suspect that the young lady's maiden meditations were not altogether "fancy free," and that her thoughts dwelt upon this handsome cousin far more than was palatable to Mr. Verdant Green's feelings. In the most unreasonable manner, therefore, he conceived a violent antipathy to Mr. Frank Delaval, even before he had set eyes upon him, and considered that the Honeywood family had, one and all, greatly overrated him. But these suppositions and suspicions made him doubly anxious to come to an understanding with Miss Patty before the arrival of the dreaded Adonis; and it was this thought that had helped to nerve him through the terrors of the orchard scene, and which, but for Mr. Bouncer's ~malapropos~ intrusion, would have brought things to a crisis.