"'Oh my!' sais Miss Letitia, lispin', 'Captain De la Cour has smashed
my bonnet, see, he is setting upon it. Did you ever?'
"'Never,' said Di, 'he has converted your cottage bonnet into a
country seat, I do declare!'
"Everybody exclaimed, 'That is excellent,' and Russel said, 'Capital,
by Jove.'
"'That kind of thing,' said De la Cour, 'is more honoured in the
breach than the observance;' and winked to Target.
"Miss Di is an inveterate punster, so she returns to the charge.
"'Letty, what fish is that, the name of which would express all you
said about your bonnet?--do you give it up? A bon-net-o!' (Boneto).
"'Well, I can't fathom that,' sais De la Cour.
"'I don't wonder at that,' sais the invincible Di; 'it is beyond your
depth, for it is an out-of-soundings fish.'
"Poor De la Cour, you had better let her alone, she is too many guns
for you. Scratch your head, for your curls and your name are all that
you have to be proud of. Let her alone, she is wicked, and she is
meditating a name for you and Pistol that will stick to you as long as
you live, she has it on the tip of her tongue--'The babes in the
wood.'
"Now for the baskets--now for the spread. The old gentlemen break up
their Lloyds' meeting--the old ladies break up their scandal club--the
young ladies and their beaux are busy in arrangements, and though the
cork-screws are nowhere to be found, Pistol has his in one of the many
pockets of his woodsman's coat, he never goes without it (like one of
his mother's waiters), which he calls his young man's best companion;
and which another, who was a year in an attorney's office, while
waiting for his commission, calls the crown circuit assistant; and a
third, who has just arrived in a steamer, designates as the screw
propeller.
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