Part 32 (2/2)

Into the stable to sit with Dandy. The thunder's awful in my room; when it gets tired it seems to sit down on my particular bit of roof.

I did doze once, and then I had a frightful dream. I dreamt that Dandy had sold himself to a circus, and that they were hooting him because he had lost his tail. There's an omen!

SIR TRISTRAM.

Don't, don't--be a man, George, be a man!

GEORGIANA.

[_Shutting her umbrella._] I know I'm dreadfully effeminate.

There--Tidd's himself again!

SIR TRISTRAM.

Bravo!

GEORGIANA.

Ah, Tris--don't think me soft, old man. I'm a lonely, unlucky woman, and the tail end of this horse is all that's left me in the world to love and to cling to!

SIR TRISTRAM.

No, by Jove! I'm not such a mean cur as that! Swop halves and take his head, George, my boy.

GEORGIANA.

Not I! I'm like a doating mother to my share of Dandy, and it's all the dearer because it's an invalid. I'm off.

SIR TRISTRAM.

Come along! [_Turning towards the window, she following him, he suddenly stops and looks at her, and seizes her hand._] George, I never guessed that you were so tender-hearted.

GEORGIANA.

Well, I'm not.

SIR TRISTRAM.

And you've robbed me to-night of an old friend--a pal.

GEORGIANA.

I--what d'ye mean?

SIR TRISTRAM.

I mean that I seem to have dropped the acquaintance of George Tidd, Esquire, forever.

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