ve's discomfiture.
Amongst them I recognized my old acquaintance, Weld, now a rival
butcher. He pushed forward boldly.

"And your honours please," said he, "he has sold lamb to half the Tory
gentry in Annapolis."

"A lie!" cried Chipchase; "a lie, as God hears me!"

Now Captain Clapsaddle was one who carried his loves and his hatreds to
the grave, and he had never liked Weld since the day, six years gone by,
he had sent me into the Ship tavern. And when Weld heard the captain's
voice he slunk away without a word.

"Have a care, Master Weld," says he, in a quiet tone that boded no good;
"there is more evidence against you than you will like."

Master Chipchase, after being frightened almost out of his senses, was
pardoned this once by Captain Daniel's influence. We went thence to Mr.
Hildreth's shop; he was suspected of having got tea out of a South River
snow; then to Mr. Jackson's; and so on. 'Twas after two when we got
back to the Coffee House, and sat down to as good a dinner as Mr. Claude
could prepare. "And now," cried Colonel Lloyd, "we shall have your
adventures, Richard. I would that your uncle were here to listen to
them," he added dryly.

I recited them very much as I had done the night before, and I warrant
you, my dears, that they listened with more zest and eagerness than did
Mr. Walpole. But they were all shrewd men, and kept their suspicions,
if they had any, to themselves. Captain Daniel would have me omit
nothing,--my intimacy with Mr. Fox, the speech at Brooks's Club, and the
riding-match at Hyde Park.

"What say you to that, gentlemen?" he cried. "Egad, I'll be sworn he
deserves credit,--an arrant young spark out of the Colonies, scarce
turned nineteen, defeating a duke of the realm on horseback, and
preaching the gospel of 'no taxation' at Brooks's Club! Nor the favour
of Sandwich or March could turn him from his principles."

Modesty, my dears, does not permit me to picture the enthusiasm of these
good gentlemen, who bore the responsibility of the colony of Maryland
upon their shoulders. They made more of me than I deserved. In vain did
I seek to explain that if a young man was but well-born, and had a full
purse and a turn for high play, his principles might go hang, for all
Mr. Fox cared. Colonel Lloyd commanded that the famous rose punch-bowl
be filled to the brim with Mr. Claude's best summer brew, and they drank
my health and my grandfather's memory. It mattered little to them that I