“I didn’t know what to be up to—didn’t know a blessed cove as I could trust at the east end of the town, so after a thinkin’ an’ thinkin’, till my head ached, all of a sudden it occurred to me to make for what you may call the fashionable quarters in London.”
“What do you call the fashionable quarters?”
“Why, the west end, in course.”
“Oh, I see.”
“It occurred to me that the best place for me to make for would be Laura Stanbridge’s. She’s fair and square enough.”
“Oh, Lorrie’s all right; no fear of her peaching.”
“So I, after I had considered the matter over for some little time, I just brought the mare gently round, turning her head in an opposite direction to the one in which she had been going before, and after going down the green lanes, the high roads and by roads, and finally the streets of London, I found myself at Laura Stanbridge’s establishment. So I up and told her what had happened, and she seemed greatly concerned about you.”
“You found her alone, then?”
“No, she was not alone when I first entered.”
“Had that conceited puppy with her, ‘the dandy,’ as we call him, I suppose?”