'WE thaw you in it, over the
wall, didn't we, Pa?'
'Hum--a-ha--a-haw!' burst out Sir John, dreadfully alarmed. 'Where's
Ponto? Why wasn't he at Quarter Sessions? How are his birds this year,
Mrs. Ponto--have those Carabas pheasants done any harm to your wheat?
a-hum--a-ha--a-haw!' and all this while he was making the most ferocious
and desperate signals to his youthful heir.
'Well, she WATH in her pinnafaw, wathn't she, Ma?' says Hugh, quite
unabashed; which question Lady Hawbuck turned away with a sudden query
regarding her dear darling daughters, and the ENFANT TERRIBLE was
removed by his father.
'I hope you weren't disturbed by the music?' Ponto says. 'My girls,
you know, practise four hours a day, you know--must do it, you
know--absolutely necessary. As for me, you know I'm an early man, and in
my farm every morning at five--no, no laziness for ME.'
The facts are these. Ponto goes to sleep directly after dinner on
entering the drawing-room, and wakes up when the ladies leave off
practice at ten. From seven till ten, from ten till five, is a very fair
allowance of slumber for a man who says he's NOT a lazy man. It is my
private opinion that when Ponto retires to what is called his 'Study,'
he sleeps too. He locks himself up there daily two hours with the
newspaper.
I saw the HAWBUCK scene out of the Study, which commands the garden.
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