Just then a door along the passage to the left opened; and Amelia, knowing pretty well who it was, smiled and tripped away, leaving Sponge to be bled or not as he thought proper.

Our hero then made for his bedroom, where, having sucked off his adhesive boots, and divested himself of the rest of his hunting attire, he wrapped himself up in his grey flannel dressing-gown, and prepared for parboiling his legs and feet, amid agreeable anticipations arising out of the recent interview, and occasional references to his old friend Mogg, whenever he did not see his way on the matrimonial road as clearly as he could wish.  ‘She’ll have me, that’s certain,’ observed he.

‘Curse the water! how hot it is!’ exclaimed he, catching his foot up out of the bath, into which he had incautiously plunged it without ascertaining the temperature of the water.  He then sluiced it with cold, and next had to add a little more hot; at last he got it to his mind, and lighting a cigar, prepared for uninterrupted enjoyment.

‘Gad!’ said he, ‘she’s by no means a bad-looking girl’ (whiff).  ’Devilish good-looking girl’ (puff); ‘good head and neck, and carries it well too’ (puff)—­’capital eye’ (whiff), ‘bright and clear’ (puff); ’no cataracts there.  She’s all good together’ (whiff, puff, whiff).  ‘Nice size too,’ continued he, ’and well set up (whiff, puff, whiff); ’straight as a dairy maid’ (puff); ‘plenty of substance—­grand thing substance’ (puff).  ’Hate a weedy woman—­fifteen two and a half—­that’s to say, five feet four’s plenty of height for a woman’ (puff).  ’Height of a woman has nothing to do with her size’ (whiff).  ’Wish she hadn’t run off (puff); ’would like to have had a little more talk with her’ (whiff, puff).  ’Women never look so well as when one comes in wet and dirty from hunting’ (puff).  He then sank silently back in the easy-chair and whiffed and puffed all sorts of fantastic clouds and columns and corkscrews at his leisure.  The cigar being finished, and the water in the foot-bath beginning to get cool, he emptied the remainder of the hot into it, and lighting a fresh cigar, began speculating on how the match was to be accomplished.

The lady was safe, that was clear; he had nothing to do but ‘pop.’  That he would do in the evening, or in the morning, or any time—­a man living in the house with a girl need never be in want of an opportunity.  That preliminary over, and the usual answer ‘Ask papa’ obtained, then came the question, how was the old boy to be managed?—­for men with marriageable daughters are to all intents and purposes ‘old boys,’ be their ages what they may.