"It is a canting ass of a doctor," I yelled in a fury, and I clapped my hat on my head.

"Your boots?" cried Larke.

"I'll e'en go in my shoes," I shouted back.

I snatched up one of Jack's pistols, rammed it into my pocket, and so clattered downstairs and into the street. I untied Swasfield's horse and sprang on to its back.

"Morrice!"

I looked up. Jack was leaning out from the window.

"Morrice," he said whimsically, and with a very winning smile, "'art not so much of a woman after all."

I dug my heels into the horse's flanks and so rode out at a gallop beneath the lime-trees to Rotterdam.

CHAPTER II.

[I REACH LONDON, AND THERE MAKE AN ACQUAINTANCE.]