st go back for it; and away she went,
slipping through my fingers. Well, I waited most impatiently for her
appearance, and at last saw her coming; and what d'ye think she'd gone
back for? By the powers, for _her doll_, which she held in her hand!
And just as she came to the chaise, who should come round the corner but
her father, who had walked from Mincing Lane. He caught my mincing Miss
by the arm, with her doll and her bundle, and bundled her home, leaving
me and the postchaise, looking like two fools. I never could see her
again, or her confounded doll either."

"You have been out of luck, McShane."

"I'm not sure of that, as the affair has ended. Now comes another
adventure, in which I turned the tables, anyhow. I fell in with a very
pretty girl, the daughter of a lawyer in Chancery Lane, who was said to
have, and (I paid a shilling at Doctors' Commons, and read the will) it
was true enough, an independent fortune from her grandmother. She was
always laughing full of mischief and practical jokes. She pretended to
be pleased, the hussey, with my addresses, and at last she consented, as
I thought, to run away with me. I imagined that I had clinched the
business at last, when one dark night I handed her into a chaise,
wrapped up in a cloak, and crying. However, I got her in, and away we
went as if the devil was behind us. I coaxed her and soothed her, and
promised to make her happy; but she still kept her handkerchief up to
her eyes, and would not permit me a chaste salute--even pushed me away
when I would put my arm round her waist; all which I ascribed to the
extra shame and modesty which a woman feels when she is doing wrong. At
last, when about fifteen miles from town, there was a burst of laughter,
and `I think we have gone far enough, Major McShane.' By all the saints
in the calendar, it was her scamp of a brother that had taken her place.
`My young gentleman,' said I, `I think you have not only gone far
enough, but, as I shall prove to you, perhaps a little too far,' for I
was in no fool of a passion. So I set to, beat him to a mummy, broke
his nose, blackened both his eyes, and knocked half his teeth down his
throat; and when he was half dead, I opened the chaise door as it
whirled along, and kicked him out to take his chance of the wheels, or
any other wheels which the wheel of fortune might turn up for him. So
he went home and told his sister what a capital joke it was, I've no
doubt. I'll b