‘Thank you, thank you, Mercy dear; I am infinitely obliged to you. Tell me,’ he said, after a decent pause, trying to shift to an easier position (a plump girl: a good ten stone), ‘diga me, would you be a good creature, bona creatura, and fetch me some iced negus? Sangria colda? Thirst, soif, very thirst, I do assure you, my dear.’
