'This is a most ingenious stroke of the theatre! I am to burn, I perceive, all the papers, or brocades as you call them, which damn you for a Jacobite plotter! It is not badly contrived, sir, but you have come to the wrong agent I am acquainted with the ingenious works of the French playwrights.'
'Sir, you compel me, against my will, to be more plain with you than I desire. It is your own fault if I give you concern. On opening the coffer you may satisfy yourself of the hand of the writer, which cannot but be familiar to you. Moreover, the letters of the person for whom we are concerned are addressed (that you may not make the error which you apprehend) to one Strephon--not a cant name of a political plot.'
'She called you--Strephon?'
'She was so kind.'
'And I was Corydon,' groaned the Colonel between his teeth.
'Arcades ambo!' said George. 'But now 'tis the hour of a third shepherd! Lycidas, perhaps, le plus heureux des trois. Oh, Colonel, be easy, we are both yesterday's roses, or, rather, I am the rose of the day before yesterday.'
'And it is for this woman--'
'Ay, it is just for this woman that you are to risk your commission, for a risk there may be, and I my life, for I could get away from this place. You perceive that we have no alternative?'
'What must be, must,' he said, after some moments of thought; 'but what if I find the Messengers already in possession of your effects?'
'In that case I must depend solely on your own management and invention. But I may say that gold will do much, nay, everything with such fellows, and your position, moreover, as a trusted officer of your King's, will enable you to satisfy men not very eminent for scruples.'