LADY K.--What do you say?

K.--Since I sold out, you know, and the regiment went abroad, confound
me, the brutes at the "Rag" will hardly speak to me! I was so ill, I
couldn't go. Who the doose can live the life I've led and keep health
enough for that infernal Crimea? Besides, how could I help it? I was
so cursedly in debt that I was OBLIGED to have the money, you know. YOU
hadn't got any.

LADY K.--Not a halfpenny, my darling. I am dreadfully in debt myself.

K.--I know you are. So am I. My brother wouldn't give me any, not a
dump. Hang him! Said he had his children to look to. Milliken wouldn't
advance me any more--said I did him in that horse transaction. He! he!
he! so I did! What had I to do but to sell out? And the fellows cut
me, by Jove. Ain't it too bad? I'll take my name off the "Rag," I will,
though.

LADY K.--We must sow our wild oats, and we must sober down; and we must
live here, where the living is very good and very cheap, Clarence, you
naughty boy! And we must get you a rich wife. Did you see at church
yesterday that young woman in light green, with rather red hair and a
pink bonnet?

K.--I was asleep, ma'am, most of the time, or I was bookin' up the
odds for the Chester Cup. When I'm bookin' up, I think of nothin' else,
ma'am,--nothin'.

LADY K.--That was Miss Brocksopp--Briggs, Brown and Brocksopp, the great
sugar-bakers. They say she will have eighty thousand pound. We will ask