He spoke
such pretty broken English, I could not help thinking of Thaddeus
of Warsaw, and the Hungarian Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani; and
while I was busy picturing his past life to myself, he had bowed me
out of the room. But wait a minute! You have not heard half my
story yet! I was going downstairs, when who should I meet but
Betty's second-cousin. So, of course, I stopped to speak to her
for Betty's sake; and she told me that I had really seen the
conjuror--the gentleman who spoke broken English was Signor Brunoni
himself. Just at this moment he passed us on the stairs, making
such a graceful bow! in reply to which I dropped a curtsey--all
foreigners have such polite manners, one catches something of it.
But when he had gone downstairs, I bethought me that I had dropped
my glove in the Assembly Room (it was safe in my muff all the time,
but I never found it till afterwards); so I went back, and, just as
I was creeping up the passage left on one side of the great screen
that goes nearly across the room, who should I see but the very
same gentleman that had met me before, and passed me on the stairs,
coming now forwards from the inner part of the room, to which there
is no entrance--you remember, Miss Matty--and just repeating, in
his pretty broken English, the inquiry if I had any business there-
-I don't mean that he put it quite so bluntly, but he seemed very
determined that I should not pass the screen--so, of course, I
explained about my glove, which, curiously enough, I found at that
very moment.
Pages:
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154