"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.
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"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. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up, demanded what I meant by that? Whereupon I made him the extreme reply that I believed he knew where I was to be found.
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