Austen Said:

“Ah, Mother! How do you do?”

“Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch. Here is Morland and I come to stay a few days with you, so you must look out for a couple of good beds somewhere near.”

“Well, Miss Morland, I suppose you and I are to stand up and jig it together again.”

“Do not you? Then let us walk about and quiz people. Come along with me, and I will show you the four greatest quizzers in the room; my two younger sisters and their partners. I have been laughing at them this half hour.”

“Well, Miss Morland, here I am. Have you been waiting long? We could not come before; the old devil of a coachmaker was such an eternity finding out a thing fit to be got into, and now it is ten thousand to one but they break down before we are out of the street. How do you do, Mrs. Allen? A famous ball last night, was not it? Come, Miss Morland, be quick, for the others are in a confounded hurry to be off. They want to get their tumble over.”

“Going to? Why, you have not forgot our engagement! Did not we agree together to take a drive this morning? What a head you have! We are going up Claverton Down.”

“Not expect me! That’s a good one! And what a dust you would have made, if I had not come.”

“You will not be frightened, Miss Morland,”

“if my horse should dance about a little at first setting off. He will, most likely, give a plunge or two, and perhaps take the rest for a minute; but he will soon know his master. He is full of spirits, playful as can be, but there is no vice in him.”

“to let him go,”

“Old Allen is as rich as a Jew — is not he?” Catherine did not understand him — and he repeated his question, adding in explanation, “Old Allen, the man you are with.”

“And no children at all?”

“A famous thing for his next heirs. He is your godfather, is not he?”

“But you are always very much with them.”

“Aye, that is what I meant. He seems a good kind of old fellow enough, and has lived very well in his time, I dare say; he is not gouty for nothing. Does he drink his bottle a day now?”

“Lord help you! You women are always thinking of men’s being in liquor. Why, you do not suppose a man is overset by a bottle? I am sure of this — that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a famous good thing for us all.”

“Oh! Lord, it would be the saving of thousands. There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy climate wants help.”

“Oxford! There is no drinking at Oxford now, I assure you. Nobody drinks there. You would hardly meet with a man who goes beyond his four pints at the utmost. Now, for instance, it was reckoned a remarkable thing, at the last party in my rooms, that upon an average we cleared about five pints a head. It was looked upon as something out of the common way. Mine is famous good stuff, to be sure. You would not often meet with anything like it in Oxford — and that may account for it. But this will just give you a notion of the general rate of drinking there.”

“Break down! Oh! Lord! Did you ever see such a little tittuppy thing in your life? There is not a sound piece of iron about it. The wheels have been fairly worn out these ten years at least — and as for the body! Upon my soul, you might shake it to pieces yourself with a touch. It is the most devilish little rickety business I ever beheld! Thank God! we have got a better. I would not be bound to go two miles in it for fifty thousand pounds.”

“Unsafe! Oh, lord! What is there in that? They will only get a roll if it does break down; and there is plenty of dirt; it will be excellent falling. Oh, curse it! The carriage is safe enough, if a man knows how to drive it; a thing of that sort in good hands will last above twenty years after it is fairly worn out. Lord bless you! I would undertake for five pounds to drive it to York and back again, without losing a nail.”

“Heyday, Miss Morland!”

“What is the meaning of this? I thought you and I were to dance together.”

“That is a good one, by Jove! I asked you as soon as I came into the room, and I was just going to ask you again, but when I turned round, you were gone! This is a cursed shabby trick! I only came for the sake of dancing with you, and I firmly believe you were engaged to me ever since Monday. Yes; I remember, I asked you while you were waiting in the lobby for your cloak. And here have I been telling all my acquaintance that I was going to dance with the prettiest girl in the room; and when they see you standing up with somebody else, they will quiz me famously.”

“By heavens, if they do not, I will kick them out of the room for blockheads. What chap have you there?”

“Tilney,”

“Hum — I do not know him. A good figure of a man; well put together. Does he want a horse? Here is a friend of mine, Sam Fletcher, has got one to sell that would suit anybody. A famous clever animal for the road — only forty guineas. I had fifty minds to buy it myself, for it is one of my maxims always to buy a good horse when I meet with one; but it would not answer my purpose, it would not do for the field. I would give any money for a real good hunter. I have three now, the best that ever were backed. I would not take eight hundred guineas for them. Fletcher and I mean to get a house in Leicestershire, against the next season. It is so d — uncomfortable, living at an inn.”

“Make haste! Make haste!”

“Put on your hat this moment — there is no time to be lost — we are going to Bristol. How d’ye do, Mrs. Allen?”

“You croaking fellow!”

“We shall be able to do ten times more. Kingsweston! Aye, and Blaize Castle too, and anything else we can hear of; but here is your sister says she will not go.”

“The finest place in England — worth going fifty miles at any time to see.”

“The oldest in the kingdom.”

“Exactly — the very same.”

“By dozens.”

“Not go! My beloved creature, what do you mean’?”

“Not they indeed,”

“for, as we turned into Broad Street, I saw them — does he not drive a phaeton with bright chestnuts?”

“Yes, I know he does; I saw him. You are talking of the man you danced with last night, are not you?”

“Well, I saw him at that moment turn up the Lansdown Road, driving a smart-looking girl.”

“Did upon my soul; knew him again directly, and he seemed to have got some very pretty cattle too.”

“And well they might, for I never saw so much dirt in my life. Walk! You could no more walk than you could fly! It has not been so dirty the whole winter; it is ankle-deep everywhere.”

“Yes, yes, every hole and corner.”

“Make yourself easy, there is no danger of that, for I heard

Tilney hallooing

to a man who was just passing by on horseback,

that

“Who is that girl who looked at you so hard as she went by?”

“On the right-hand pavement — she must be almost out of sight now.”

“It is all one to me,”

“If your brother had not got such a d — beast to drive,”