The Argosy — page 316: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Between Two Stools. 299 I hear footsteps on the stairs. Take your embroidery, child, and sit where you usually do.” Miss Carruthers had scarcely time to rise from her chair, and retire to a more respectful distance from her protectress, before an irreproachably white-cravated butler, appearing at the door, announced in a sonorous tone, ** Major de Mogyns !” The new-comer, a middle-sized individual, with stiff black hair, suspiciously bordering on purple, and a carefully waxed moustache, entered the room as jauntily as a decided tendency to obesity would permit, and advanced towards the widow with an air of great em- pressement, vouchsafing only a distant and somewhat cavalier bow to her fair companion. While he is inquiring in accents of the ten- derest solicitude after the health of ‘‘dear Mrs. Mangoe,” and in- stalling himself in a comfortable arm-chair by her side, it may not be inopportune to enlighten the reader respecting the social position of the gallant warrior, and explain by what means he had contrived to obtain admittance on so apparently intimate a footing to No. 200A, Wimpole Street. Major de Mogyns, then, or, as he was habitually styled at the Caravansary, ‘“‘the Major,” possibly because no other of its members possessed any claim to a similar distinctive title, had borne during the earlier part of his career the less euphonious but more legitimate name of Muggins, which he subsequently discarded together with all reminiscences of an obscure parentage, and of a family still vege- tating in the dingy atmosphere of a small manufacturing town. Whence he derived his military grade, or to what regiment he had belonged, no one precisely knew, his allusions to such topics being of the vaguest ; but it was generally supposed, from his evident familiarity with life in India, that he had been at some time or other attached to a native corps. He had become acquainted with the husband of his hostess in Calcutta, and afterwards renewed his intercourse with him at Cheltenham, a favourite resort of the retired civilian. It was there that the latter first met the Honourable Adolphus, during a flying trip of the sporting patrician to Gloucestershire on the occasion of a steeple-chase, where he himself was among the competitors; and it may parenthetically be added, disappointed his backers by an untimely ‘‘ cropper” at the second fence. Since the death of Mr. Mangoe, the Major had continued to cultivate the society of his widow, and from the period of her in- stallation in London seldom allowed many days to elapse without finding his way to Wimpole Street, and neglected no opportunity of assuming the rights and privileges of ‘‘l’ami de la maison.” Sharpset’s visits, on the contrary, were few and far between; but when he did appear, his respectful devotion to the lady of the house was gall and wormwood to his military rival, who hated him cordially, and sought by every means in his power to disparage COMIC OOO S (SO) im