Of the Lady’s Chamber
turned, thinking the traps were right upon me, but ’twas only Mawkin, rubbing his fingers and humming to himself, very much pleased.
“Take Sir Charles,” says her ladyship lightly.
And somehow all of a sudden the humour took me, for I am a man of odd impulses; and, moreover, I recalled that all this had fallen out by reason of his treachery. I slapped my leg.
“By Gad!” I says, “and so I will.”
Mrs Cynthia cried out aloud, and her ladyship laughed, and old Mawkin struggled; but I took him by the small of his back, and flinging him over my arm, made for the door.
“They will take you,” cried Miss, “they will take you.”
“By the way I came in,” I says, “by that way I go forth, and a pest upon all petticoats!”
“Don’t ye stay in sis’s chamber,” cries out her ladyship, screaming with laughter.
But I was out of the room and up the stairway, ere I could hear more. I pulled old Mawkin through the window for all his gambadoes, catched up Calypso (and my boots) at the mews, and was out and away upon the
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