_THE SQUIRE OF DAMES_(_Concluded_)
What with the lady's animated manner and dramatic conduct of her voice,Challoner had thrilled to every incident with genuine emotion. Hisfancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively character, applauded boththe matter and the style; but the more judicial functions of his mindrefused assent. It was an excellent story; and it might be true, but hebelieved it was not. Miss Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtlesspossible for a lady to wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman totell her so? His spirits for some time had been sinking, but they nowfell to zero; and long after her voice had died away he still sat with atroubled and averted countenance, and could find no form of words tothank her for her narrative. His mind, indeed, was empty of everythingbeyond a dull longing for escape. From this pause, which grew the moreembarrassing with every second, he was roused by the sudden laughter ofthe lady. His vanity was alarmed; he turned and faced her; their eyesmet; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank merriment as put himinstantly at ease.
'You certainly,' he said, 'appear to bear your calamities with excellentspirit.'
'Do I not?' she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter. Butfrom this access she more speedily recovered. 'This is all very well,'said she, nodding at him gravely, 'but I am still in a most distressingsituation, from which, if you deny me your help, I shall find itdifficult indeed to free myself.'
At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.
'My sympathies are much engaged with you,' he said, 'and I should bedelighted, I am sure. But our position is most unusual; andcircumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control, deprive meof the power--the pleasure--Unless, indeed,' he added, somewhatbrightening at the thought, 'I were to recommend you to the care of thepolice?'
She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and he sawwith wonder that, for the first time since the moment of their meeting,every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.
'Do so,' she said, 'and--weigh my words well--you kill me as certainly aswith a knife.'
'God bless me!' exclaimed Challoner.
'Oh,' she cried, 'I can see you disbelieve my story and make light of theperils that surround me; but who are you to judge? My family share myapprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw yourself by what anemissary, and in what a place, they have chosen to supply me with thefunds for my escape. I admit that you are brave and clever and haveimpressed me most favourably; but how are you to prefer your opinionbefore that of my uncle, an ex-minister of state, a man with the ear ofthe Queen, and of a long political experience? If I am mad, is he? Andyou must allow me, besides, a special claim upon your help. Strange asyou may think my story, you know that much of it is true; and if you whoheard the explosion and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit andassist me, to whom am I to turn?'
'He gave you money then?' asked Challoner, who had been dwelling singlyon that fact.
'I begin to interest you,' she cried. 'But, frankly, you are condemnedto help me. If the service I had to ask of you were serious, weresuspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more. But what is it? Totake a pleasure trip (for which, if you will suffer me, I propose to pay)and to carry from one lady to another a sum of money! What can be moresimple?'
'Is the sum,' asked Challoner, 'considerable?'
She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had not yetfound time to make the count, tore open the cover and spread upon herknees a considerable number of Bank of England notes. It took some timeto make the reckoning, for the notes were of every degree of value; butat last, and counting a few loose sovereigns, she made out the sum to bea little under 710 pounds sterling. The sight of so much money worked animmediate revolution in the mind of Challoner.
'And you propose, madam,' he cried, 'to intrust that money to a perfectstranger?'
'Ah!' said she, with a charming smile, 'but I no longer regard you as astranger.'
'Madam,' said Challoner, 'I perceive I must make you a confession.Although of a very good family--through my mother, indeed, a linealdescendant of the patriot Bruce--I dare not conceal from you that myaffairs are deeply, very deeply involved. I am in debt; my pockets arepractically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that state when aconsiderable sum of money would prove to many men an irresistibletemptation.'
'Do you not see,' returned the young lady, 'that by these words you haveremoved my last hesitation? Take them.' And she thrust the notes intothe young man's hand.
He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that MissFonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.
'Pray,' she said, 'hesitate no further; put them in your pocket; and torelieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me by what nameI am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself reduced to theawkwardness of the pronoun.'
Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had comelightly to the young man's aid; but upon what pretext could he refuse sogenerous a trust? Upon none he saw, that was not unpardonably wounding;and the bright eyes and the high spirits of his companion had alreadymade a breach in the rampart of Challoner's caution. The whole thing, hereasoned, might be a mere mystification, which it were the height ofsolemn folly to resent. On the other hand, the explosion, the interviewat the public-house, and the very money in his hands, seemed to provebeyond denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so,could he desert her? There was a choice of risks: the risk of behavingwith extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a lady, and the riskof going on a fool's errand. The story seemed false; but then the moneywas undeniable. The whole circumstances were questionable and obscure;but the lady was charming, and had the speech and manners of society.While he still hung in the wind, a recollection returned upon his mindwith some of the dignity of prophecy. Had he not promised Somerset tobreak with the traditions of the commonplace, and to accept the firstadventure offered? Well, here was the adventure.
He thrust the money into his pocket.
'My name is Challoner,' said he.
'Mr. Challoner,' she replied, 'you have come very generously to my aidwhen all was against me. Though I am myself a very humble person, myfamily commands great interest; and I do not think you will repent thishandsome action.'
Challoner flushed with pleasure.
'I imagine that, perhaps, a consulship,' she added, her eyes dwelling onhim with a judicial admiration, 'a consulship in some great town orcapital--or else--But we waste time; let us set about the work of mydelivery.'
She took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart; and oncemore laying by all serious thoughts, she entertained him, as they crossedthe park, with her agreeable gaiety of mind. Near the Marble Arch theyfound a hansom, which rapidly conveyed them to the terminus at EustonSquare; and here, in the hotel, they sat down to an excellent breakfast.The young lady's first step was to call for writing materials and write,upon one corner of the table, a hasty note; still, as she did so,glancing with smiles at her companion. 'Here,' said she, 'here is theletter which will introduce you to my cousin.' She began to fold thepaper. 'My cousin, although I have never seen her, has the character ofa very charming woman and a recognised beauty; of that I know nothing,but at least she has been very kind to me; so has my lord her father; sohave you--kinder than all--kinder than I can bear to think of.' She saidthis with unusual emotion; and, at the same time, sealed the envelope.'Ah!' she cried, 'I have shut my letter! It is not quite courteous; andyet, as between friends, it is perhaps better so. I introduce you, afterall, into a family secret; and though you and I are already old comrades,you are still unknown to my uncle. You go then to this address, RichardStreet, Glasgow; go, please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letterwith your own hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that is the nameby which she is to pass. When we next meet, you will tell me what youthink of her,' she added, with a touch of the provocative.
'Ah,' said Cha
lloner, almost tenderly, 'she can be nothing to me.'
'You do not know,' replied the young lady, with a sigh. 'By-the-bye, Ihad forgotten--it is very childish, and I am almost ashamed to mentionit--but when you see Miss Fonblanque, you will have to make yourself alittle ridiculous; and I am sure the part in no way suits you. We hadagreed upon a watchword. You will have to address an earl's daughter inthese words: "_Nigger_, _nigger_, _never die_;" but reassure yourself,'she added, laughing, 'for the fair patrician will at once finish thequotation. Come now, say your lesson.'
'"Nigger, nigger, never die,"' repeated Challoner, with undisguisedreluctance.
Miss Fonblanque went into fits of laughter. 'Excellent,' said she, 'itwill be the most humorous scene.' And she laughed again.
'And what will be the counterword?' asked Challoner stiffly.
'I will not tell you till the last moment,' said she; 'for I perceive youare growing too imperious.'
Breakfast over, she accompanied the young man to the platform, bought himthe _Graphic_, the _Athenaeum_, and a paper-cutter, and stood on the stepconversing till the whistle sounded. Then she put her head into thecarriage. '_Black face and shining eye_!' she whispered, and instantlyleaped down upon the platform, with a thrill of gay and musical laughter.As the train steamed out of the great arch of glass, the sound of thatlaughter still rang in the young man's ears.
Challoner's position was too unusual to be long welcome to his mind. Hefound himself projected the whole length of England, on a mission besetwith obscure and ridiculous circumstances, and yet, by the trust he hadaccepted, irrevocably bound to persevere. How easy it appeared, in theretrospect, to have refused the whole proposal, returned the money, andgone forth again upon his own affairs, a free and happy man! And it wasnow impossible: the enchantress who had held him with her eye had nowdisappeared, taking his honour in pledge; and as she had failed to leavehim an address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat. Touse the paper-knife, or even to read the periodicals with which she hadpresented him, was to renew the bitterness of his remorse; and as he wasalone in the compartment, he passed the day staring at the landscape inimpotent repentance, and long before he was landed on the platform of St.Enoch's, had fallen to the lowest and coldest zones of self-contempt.
As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have preferred todine and to remove the stains of travel; but the words of the young lady,and his own impatient eagerness, would suffer no delay. In the late,luminous, and lamp-starred dusk of the summer evening, he accordingly setforward with brisk steps.
The street to which he was directed had first seen the day in thecharacter of a row of small suburban villas on a hillside; but theextension of the city had long since, and on every hand, surrounded itwith miles of streets. From the top of the hill a range of very tallbuildings, densely inhabited by the poorest classes of the population andvariegated by drying-poles from every second window, overplumbed thevillas and their little gardens like a sea-board cliff. But still, underthe grime of years of city smoke, these antiquated cottages, with theirvenetian blinds and rural porticoes, retained a somewhat melancholysavour of the past.
The street when Challoner entered it was perfectly deserted. From hardby, indeed, the sound of a thousand footfalls filled the ear; but inRichard Street itself there was neither light nor sound of humanhabitation. The appearance of the neighbourhood weighed heavily on themind of the young man; once more, as in the streets of London, he wasimpressed with the sense of city deserts; and as he approached the numberindicated, and somewhat falteringly rang the bell, his heart sank withinhim.
The bell was ancient, like the house; it had a thin and garrulous note;and it was some time before it ceased to sound from the rear quarters ofthe building. Following upon this an inner door was stealthily opened,and careful and catlike steps drew near along the hall. Challoner,supposing he was to be instantly admitted, produced his letter, and, aswell as he was able, prepared a smiling face. To his indescribablesurprise, however, the footsteps ceased, and then, after a pause and withthe like stealthiness, withdrew once more, and died away in the interiorof the house. A second time the young man rang violently at the bell; asecond time, to his keen hearkening, a certain bustle of discreet footingmoved upon the hollow boards of the old villa; and again the faintheartedgarrison only drew near to retreat. The cup of the visitor's endurancewas now full to overflowing; and, committing the whole family ofFonblanque to every mood and shade of condemnation, he turned upon hisheel and redescended the steps. Perhaps the mover in the house waswatching from a window, and plucked up courage at the sight of thisdesistance; or perhaps, where he lurked trembling in the back parts ofthe villa, reason in its own right had conquered his alarms. Challoner,at least, had scarce set foot upon the pavement when he was arrested bythe sound of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed another,rattling in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock; the dooropened; and there appeared upon the threshold a man of a very stalwartfigure in his shirt sleeves. He was a person neither of great manlybeauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man, in ordinary moods,to attract the eyes of the observer; but as he now stood in the doorway,he was marked so legibly with the extreme passion of terror thatChalloner stood wonder-struck. For a fraction of a minute they gazedupon each other in silence; and then the man of the house, with ashenlips and gasping voice, inquired the business of his visitor. Challonerreplied, in tones from which he strove to banish his surprise, that hewas the bearer of a letter to a certain Miss Fonblanque. At this name,as at a talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to enter;and no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold, than the door wasclosed behind him and his retreat cut off.
It was already long past eight at night; and though the late twilight ofthe north still lingered in the streets, in the passage it was alreadygroping dark. The man led Challoner directly to a parlour looking on thegarden to the back. Here he had apparently been supping; for by thelight of a tallow dip the table was seen to be covered with a napkin, andset out with a quart of bottled ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese. Theroom, on the other hand, was furnished with faded solidity, and the wallswere lined with scholarly and costly volumes in glazed cases. The housemust have been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this man ofthe shirt sleeves and the mean supper. As for the earl's daughter, theearl and the visionary consulships in foreign cities, they had long agobegun to fade in Challoner's imagination. Like Doctor Grierson and theMormon angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of dreams. Not anillusion remained to the knight-errant; not a hope was left him, but tobe speedily relieved from this disreputable business.
The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised anxiety, andbegan once more to press him for his errand.
'I am here,' said Challoner, 'simply to do a service between two ladies;and I must ask you, without further delay, to summon Miss Fonblanque,into whose hands alone I am authorised to deliver the letter that Ibear.'
A growing wonder began to mingle on the man's face with the lines ofsolicitude. 'I am Miss Fonblanque,' he said; and then, perceiving theeffect of this communication, 'Good God!' he cried, 'what are you staringat? I tell you, I am Miss Fonblanque.'
Seeing the speaker wore a chin-beard of considerable length, and theremainder of his face was blue with shaving, Challoner could only supposehimself the subject of a jest. He was no longer under the spell of theyoung lady's presence; and with men, and above all with his inferiors, hewas capable of some display of spirit.
'Sir,' said he, pretty roundly, 'I have put myself to great inconveniencefor persons of whom I know too little, and I begin to be weary of thebusiness. Either you shall immediately summon Miss Fonblanque, or Ileave this house and put myself under the direction of the police.'
'This is horrible!' exclaimed the man. 'I declare before Heaven I am theperson meant, but how shall I convince you? It must have been Clara, Iperceive, that sent you on this errand--a ma
dwoman, who jests with themost deadly interests; and here we are incapable, perhaps, of anagreement, and Heaven knows what may depend on our delay!'
He spoke with a really startling earnestness; and at the same time thereflashed upon the mind of Challoner the ridiculous jingle which was toserve as password. 'This may, perhaps, assist you,' he said, and then,with some embarrassment, '"Nigger, nigger, never die."'
A light of relief broke upon the troubled countenance of the man with thechin-beard. '"Black face and shining eye"--give me the letter,' hepanted, in one gasp.
'Well,' said Challoner, though still with some reluctance, 'I suppose Imust regard you as the proper recipient; and though I may justly complainof the spirit in which I have been treated, I am only too glad to be donewith all responsibility. Here it is,' and he produced the envelope.
The man leaped upon it like a beast, and with hands that trembled in amanner painful to behold, tore it open and unfolded the letter. As heread, terror seemed to mount upon him to the pitch of nightmare. Hestruck one hand upon his brow, while with the other, as if unconsciously,he crumpled the paper to a ball. 'My gracious powers!' he cried; andthen, dashing to the window, which stood open on the garden, he clappedforth his head and shoulders, and whistled long and shrill. Challonerfell back into a corner, and resolutely grasping his staff, prepared forthe most desperate events; but the thoughts of the man with thechin-beard were far removed from violence. Turning again into the room,and once more beholding his visitor, whom he appeared to have forgotten,he fairly danced with trepidation. 'Impossible!' he cried. 'Oh, quiteimpossible! O Lord, I have lost my head.' And then, once more strikinghis hand upon his brow, 'The money!' he exclaimed. 'Give me the money.'
'My good friend,' replied Challoner, 'this is a very painful exhibition;and until I see you reasonably master of yourself, I decline to proceedwith any business.'
'You are quite right,' said the man. 'I am of a very nervous habit; along course of the dumb ague has undermined my constitution. But I knowyou have money; it may be still the saving of me; and oh, dear younggentleman, in pity's name be expeditious!' Challoner, sincerely uneasyas he was, could scarce refrain from laughter; but he was himself in ahurry to be gone, and without more delay produced the money. 'You willfind the sum, I trust, correct,' he observed 'and let me ask you to giveme a receipt.'
But the man heeded him not. He seized the money, and disregarding thesovereigns that rolled loose upon the floor, thrust the bundle of notesinto his pocket.
'A receipt,' repeated Challoner, with some asperity. 'I insist on areceipt.'
'Receipt?' repeated the man, a little wildly. 'A receipt? Immediately!Await me here.'
Challoner, in reply, begged the gentleman to lose no unnecessary time, ashe was himself desirous of catching a particular train.
'Ah, by God, and so am I!' exclaimed the man with the chin-beard; andwith that he was gone out of the room, and had rattled upstairs, four ata time, to the upper story of the villa.
'This is certainly a most amazing business,' thought Challoner;'certainly a most disquieting affair; and I cannot conceal from myselfthat I have become mixed up with either lunatics or malefactors. I maytruly thank my stars that I am so nearly and so creditably done with it.'Thus thinking, and perhaps remembering the episode of the whistle, heturned to the open window. The garden was still faintly clear; he coulddistinguish the stairs and terraces with which the small domain had beenadorned by former owners, and the blackened bushes and dead trees thathad once afforded shelter to the country birds; beyond these he saw thestrong retaining wall, some thirty feet in height, which enclosed thegarden to the back; and again above that, the pile of dingy buildingsrearing its frontage high into the night. A peculiar object lyingstretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his eyesight; but at lengthhe had made it out to be a long ladder, or series of ladders bound intoone; and he was still wondering of what service so great an instrumentcould be in such a scant enclosure, when he was recalled to himself bythe noise of some one running violently down the stairs. This wasfollowed by the sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and thatagain, by rapid and retreating footsteps in the street.
Challoner sprang into the passage. He ran from room to room, upstairsand downstairs; and in that old dingy and worm-eaten house, he foundhimself alone. Only in one apartment, looking to the front, were thereany traces of the late inhabitant: a bed that had been recently slept inand not made, a chest of drawers disordered by a hasty search, and on thefloor a roll of crumpled paper. This he picked up. The light in thisupper story looking to the front was considerably brighter than in theparlour; and he was able to make out that the paper bore the mark of thehotel at Euston, and even, by peering closely, to decipher the followinglines in a very elegant and careful female hand:
'DEAR M'GUIRE,--It is certain your retreat is known. We have just had another failure, clockwork thirty hours too soon, with the usual humiliating result. Zero is quite disheartened. We are all scattered, and I could find no one but the _solemn ass_ who brings you this and the money. I would love to see your meeting.--Ever yours,
SHINING EYE.'
Challoner was stricken to the heart. He perceived by what facility, bywhat unmanly fear of ridicule, he had been brought down to be the gull ofthis intriguer; and his wrath flowed forth in almost equal measureagainst himself, against the woman, and against Somerset, whose idlecounsels had impelled him to embark on that adventure. At the same timea great and troubled curiosity, and a certain chill of fear, possessedhis spirit. The conduct of the man with the chin-beard, the terms of theletter, and the explosion of the early morning, fitted together likeparts in some obscure and mischievous imbroglio. Evil was certainlyafoot; evil, secrecy, terror, and falsehood were the conditions and thepassions of the people among whom he had begun to move, like a blindpuppet; and he who began as a puppet, his experience told him, was oftendoomed to perish as a victim.
From the stupor of deep thought into which he had glided with the letterin his hand, he was awakened by the clatter of the bell. He glanced fromthe window; and, conceive his horror and surprise when he beheld,clustered on the steps, in the front garden and on the pavement of thestreet, a formidable posse of police! He started to the full possessionof his powers and courage. Escape, and escape at any cost, was the oneidea that possessed him. Swiftly and silently he redescended thecreaking stairs; he was already in the passage when a second and moreimperious summons from the door awoke the echoes of the empty house; norhad the bell ceased to jangle before he had bestridden the window-sill ofthe parlour and was lowering himself into the garden. His coat washooked upon the iron flower-basket; for a moment he hung dependent heelsand head below; and then, with the noise of rending cloth, and followedby several pots, he dropped upon the sod. Once more the bell was rung,and now with furious and repeated peals. The desperate Challoner turnedhis eyes on every side. They fell upon the ladder, and he ran to it, andwith strenuous but unavailing effort sought to raise it from the ground.Suddenly the weight, which was thus resisting his whole strength, beganto lighten in his hands; the ladder, like a thing of life, reared itsbulk from off the sod; and Challoner, leaping back with a cry of almostsuperstitious terror, beheld the whole structure mount, foot by foot,against the face of the retaining wall. At the same time, two heads weredimly visible above the parapet, and he was hailed by a guarded whistle.Something in its modulation recalled, like an echo, the whistle of theman with the chin-beard.
Had he chanced upon a means of escape prepared beforehand by those verymiscreants whose messenger and gull he had become? Was this, indeed, ameans of safety, or but the starting-point of further complication anddisaster? He paused not to reflect. Scarce was the ladder reared to itsfull length than he had sprung already on the rounds; hand over hand,swift as an ape, he scaled the tottering stairway. Strong arms received,embraced, and helped him; he was lifted and set once more
upon the earth;and with the spasm of his alarm yet unsubsided, found himself in thecompany of two rough-looking men, in the paved back yard of one of thetall houses that crowned the summit of the hill. Meanwhile, from below,the note of the bell had been succeeded by the sound of vigorous andredoubling blows.
'Are you all out?' asked one of his companions; and, as soon as he hadbabbled an answer in the affirmative, the rope was cut from the topround, and the ladder thrust roughly back into the garden, where it felland broke with clattering reverberations. Its fall was hailed with manybroken cries; for the whole of Richard Street was now in high emotion,the people crowding to the windows or clambering on the garden walls.The same man who had already addressed Challoner seized him by the arm;whisked him through the basement of the house and across the street uponthe other side; and before the unfortunate adventurer had time to realisehis situation, a door was opened, and he was thrust into a low and darkcompartment.
'Bedad,' observed his guide, 'there was no time to lose. Is M'Guiregone, or was it you that whistled?
'M'Guire is gone,' said Challoner.
The guide now struck a light. 'Ah,' said he, 'this will never do. Youdare not go upon the streets in such a figure. Wait quietly here and Iwill bring you something decent.'
With that the man was gone, and Challoner, his attention thus rudelyawakened, began ruefully to consider the havoc that had been worked inhis attire. His hat was gone; his trousers were cruelly ripped; and thebest part of one tail of his very elegant frockcoat had been left hangingfrom the iron crockets of the window. He had scarce had time to measurethese disasters when his host re-entered the apartment and proceeded,without a word, to envelop the refined and urbane Challoner in a longulster of the cheapest material, and of a pattern so gross and vulgarthat his spirit sickened at the sight. This calumnious disguise wascrowned and completed by a soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, andseveral sizes too small. At another moment Challoner would simply haverefused to issue forth upon the world thus travestied; but the desire toescape from Glasgow was now too strongly and too exclusively impressedupon his mind. With one haggard glance at the spotted tails of his newcoat, he inquired what was to pay for this accoutrement. The man assuredhim that the whole expense was easily met from funds in his possession,and begged him, instead of wasting time, to make his best speed out ofthe neighbourhood.
The young man was not loath to take the hint. True to his usualcourtesy, he thanked the speaker and complimented him upon his taste ingreatcoats; and leaving the man somewhat abashed by these remarks and themanner of their delivery, he hurried forth into the lamplit city. Thelast train was gone ere, after many deviations, he had reached theterminus. Attired as he was he dared not present himself at anyreputable inn; and he felt keenly that the unassuming dignity of hisdemeanour would serve to attract attention, perhaps mirth and possiblysuspicion, in any humbler hostelry. He was thus condemned to pass thesolemn and uneventful hours of a whole night in pacing the streets ofGlasgow; supperless; a figure of fun for all beholders; waiting the dawn,with hope indeed, but with unconquerable shrinkings; and above allthings, filled with a profound sense of the folly and weakness of hisconduct. It may be conceived with what curses he assailed the memory ofthe fair narrator of Hyde Park; her parting laughter rang in his ears allnight with damning mockery and iteration; and when he could spare athought from this chief artificer of his confusion, it was to expend hiswrath on Somerset and the career of the amateur detective. With thecoming of day, he found in a shy milk-shop the means to appease hishunger. There were still many hours to wait before the departure of theSouth express; these he passed wandering with indescribable fatigue inthe obscurer by-streets of the city; and at length slipped quietly intothe station and took his place in the darkest corner of a third-classcarriage. Here, all day long, he jolted on the bare boards, distressedby heat and continually reawakened from uneasy slumbers. By the halfreturn ticket in his purse, he was entitled to make the journey on theeasy cushions and with the ample space of the first-class; but alas! inhis absurd attire, he durst not, for decency, commingle with his equals;and this small annoyance, coming last in such a series of disasters, cuthim to the heart.
That night, when, in his Putney lodging, he reviewed the expense,anxiety, and weariness of his adventure; when he beheld the ruins of hislast good trousers and his last presentable coat; and above all, when hiseye by any chance alighted on the Tyrolese hat or the degrading ulster,his heart would overflow with bitterness, and it was only by a seriouscall on his philosophy that he maintained the dignity of his demeanour.
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