the dear old duchess."

"They say Frank and she are engaged after the duke's death," cried
Poldoody.

"I always thought Fwank was the duke's illicit gweatgwandson," drawled
out De Boots.

"I heard that he doctored her Blenheim, and used to bring her wigs from
Paris," cried that malicious Tom Protocol, whose mots are known in every
diplomatic salon from Petersburg to Palermo.

"Burn her wigs and hang her poodle!" said Bagnigge. "Tell me about this
girl, Franklin Fox."

"In the first place, she has five hundred thousand acres, in a ring
fence in Norfolk; a county in Scotland, a castle in Wales, a villa at
Richmond, a corner house in Belgrave Square, and eighty thousand a year
in the three-per-cents."

"Apres?" said Bagnigge, still yawning.

"Secondly, Borodino lui fait la cour. They are cousins, her mother was
an Armagnac of the emigration; the old Marshal, his father, married
another sister. I believe he was footman in the family, before Napoleon
princified him."

"No, no, he was second coachman," Tom Protocol good-naturedly
interposed--"a cavalry officer, Frank, not an infantry man."