“I wish it had, with all my heart.”
“That’s how it was. Now I’m sure, Mr. Jones, you’ll take a lady’s apology. It was a most unfortunate mistake,—most unfortunate; but what more can be said?”
Mr. Jones gave himself up to reflection for a few moments before he replied to this. He supposed that he was bound to believe the story as far as it went. At any rate, he did not know how he could say that he did not believe it. It seemed to him to be almost incredible,—especially incredible in regard to that personal mistake, for, except that they both had long beards and brown beards, Mr. Jones thought that there was no point of resemblance between himself and Mr. Brown. But still, even that, he felt, must be accepted. But then why had he been left, deserted, to undergo all those torments? “She found out her mistake at last, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why didn’t she wake a fellow and take it off again?”
“Ah!”
“She can’t have cared very much for a man’s comfort when she went away and left him like that.”
“Ah! there was the difficulty, Mr. Jones.”
“Difficulty! Who was it that had done it? To come to me, in my bedroom, in the middle of the night, and put that thing on me, and then leave it there and say nothing about it! It seems to me deuced like a practical joke.”
“No, Mr. Jones!”