on
the following morning, in my rooms. I remembered the faithful Banks with
a twinge of gratitude, and sent for him. And John Paul and I, having
been duly installed in the clothes made for us, all three of us sat down
merrily to such a supper as only the cook of the Star and Garter, who
had been chef to the Comte de Maurepas, could prepare. Then I begged
Comyn to relate the story of our rescue, which I burned to hear.

"Why, Richard," said he, filling his glass, "had you run afoul any
other man in London, save perchance Selwyn, you'd have been drinking the
bailiff's triple-diluted for a month to come. I never knew such a brace
of fools as he and Horry for getting hold of strange yarns and making
them stranger; the wonder was that Horry told this as straight as he
did. He has written it to all his friends on the Continent, and had he
not been in dock with the gout ever since he reached town, he would
have told it at the opera, and at a dozen routs and suppers. Beg pardon,
captain," said he, turning to John Paul, "but I think 'twas your peacock
coat that saved you both, for it caught Horry's eye through the window,
as you got out of the chaise, and down he came as fast as he could
hobble.

"Horry had a little dinner to-day in Arlington Street, where he lives,
and Miss Dorothy was there. I have told you, Richard, there has been
no sensation in town equal to that of your Maryland beauty, since Lady
Sarah Lennox. You may have some notion of the old beau Horry can be when
he tries, and he is over-fond of Miss Dolly--she puts him in mind of
some canvas or other of Sir Peter's. He vowed he had been saving this
piece de resistance, as he was pleased to call it, expressly for her,
since it had to do somewhat with Maryland. 'What d'ye think I met at
Windsor, Miss Manners?' he cries, before we had begun the second course.

"'Perhaps a repulse from his Majesty,' says Dolly, promptly.

"'Nay,' says Mr. Walpole, making a face, for he hates a laugh at his
cost; nothing less than a young American giant, with the attire of Dr.
Benjamin Franklin and the manner of the Fauxbourg Saint Germain. But he
had a whiff of deer leather about him, and shoulders and back and legs
to make his fortune at Hockley in the Hole, had he lived two generations
since. And he had with him a strange, Scotch sea-captain, who had
rescued him from pirates, bless you, no less. That is, he said he was
a sea-captain; but he talked French like a Parisian, and quote