Drummle had not yet toasted a lady;
which, according to the solemn constitution of the society, it was
the brute's turn to do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an
ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as there
was no love lost between us, that might easily be. What was my
indignant surprise when he called upon the company to pledge him to
"Estella!"
"Estella who?" said I.
"Never you mind," retorted Drummle.
"Estella of where?" said I. "You are bound to say of where." Which
he was, as a Finch.
"Of Richmond, gentlemen," said Drummle, putting me out of the
question, "and a peerless beauty."
Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I
whispered Herbert.
"I know that lady," said Herbert, across the table, when the toast
had been honored.
"Do you?" said Drummle.
"And so do I," I added, with a scarlet face.
"Do you?" said Drummle. "O, Lord!"
This was the only retort--except glass or crockery--that the
heavy creature was capable of making; but, I became as highly
incensed by it as if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately
rose in my place and said that I could not but regard it as being
like the honorable Finch's impudence to come down to that Grove,--
we always talked about coming down to that Grove, as a neat
Parliamentary turn of expression,--down to that Grove, proposing a
lady of whom he knew nothing.
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