"Two to one I will." And there the affair rested, for the council of the company were in high consultation concerning the most proper manner of opening a communication with the mysterious stranger; and the voice of Mr.
Winterblossom, whose tones, originally fine, age had reduced to falsetto, was calling upon the whole party for "Order, order!" So that the bucks were obliged to lounge in silence, with both arms reclined on the table, and testifying, by coughs and yawns, their indifference to the matters in question, while the rest of the company debated upon them, as if they were matters of life and death.
"A visit from one of the gentlemen--Mr.Winterblossom, if he would take the trouble--in name of the company at large--would, Lady Penelope Penfeather presumed to think, be a necessary preliminary to an invitation." Mr.Winterblossom was "quite of her ladyship's opinion, and would gladly have been the personal representative of the company at St.Ronan's Well--but it was up hill--her ladyship knew his tyrant, the gout, was hovering upon the frontiers--there were other gentlemen, younger and more worthy to fly at the lady's command than an ancient Vulcan like him--there was the valiant Mars and the eloquent Mercury." Thus speaking, he bowed to Captain MacTurk and the Rev.Mr.Simon Chatterly, and reclined on his chair, sipping his negus with the self-satisfied smile of one, who, by a pretty speech, has rid himself of a troublesome commission.

At the same time, by an act probably of mental absence, he put in his pocket the drawing, which, after circulating around the table, had returned back to the chair of the president, being the point from which it had set out.
"By Cot, madam," said Captain MacTurk, "I should be proud to obey your leddyship's commands--but, by Cot, I never call first on any man that never called upon me at all, unless it were to carry him a friend's message, or such like." "Twig the old connoisseur," said the Squire to the Knight.--"He is condiddling the drawing." "Go it, Johnnie Mowbray--pour it into him," whispered Sir Bingo.
"Thank ye for nothing, Sir Bingo," said the Squire, in the same tone.
"Winterblossom is one of us--_was_ one of us at least--and won't stand the ironing.

He has his Wogdens still, that were right things in his day, and can hit the hay-stack with the best of us--but stay, they are hallooing on the parson." They were indeed busied on all hands, to obtain Mr.Chatterly's consent to wait on the Genius unknown; but though he smiled and simpered, and was absolutely incapable of saying No, he begged leave, in all humility, to decline that commission.

"The truth was," he pleaded in his excuse, "that having one day walked to visit the old Castle of St.Ronan's, and returning through the Auld Town, as it was popularly called, he had stopped at the door of the _Cleikum_," (pronounced _Anglice_, with the open diphthong,) "in hopes to get a glass of syrup of capillaire, or a draught of something cooling; and had in fact expressed his wishes, and was knocking pretty loudly, when a sash-window was thrown suddenly up, and ere he was aware what was about to happen, he was soused with a deluge of water," (as he said,) "while the voice of an old hag from within assured him, that if that did not cool him there was another biding him,--an intimation which induced him to retreat in all haste from the repetition of the shower-bath." All laughed at the account of the chaplain's misfortune, the history of which seemed to be wrung from him reluctantly, by the necessity of assigning some weighty cause for declining to execute the ladies' commands.

But the Squire and Baronet continued their mirth far longer than decorum allowed, flinging themselves back in their chairs, with their hands thrust into their side-pockets, and their mouths expanded with unrestrained enjoyment, until the sufferer, angry, disconcerted, and endeavouring to look scornful, incurred another general burst of laughter on all hands.
When Mr.Winterblossom had succeeded in restoring some degree of order, he found the mishaps of the young divine proved as intimidating as ludicrous.