Now meantime I had been searching about the garden, and was lucky enough to find a tool shed, and inside of this a ladder hanging, which now I carried across and planted beneath the window. I had a shrewd notion of what I should find at the top, remembering now to have heard that the Princes Rupert and Maurice were lodging with Master Carter: but the truth beat all my fancies.
For climbing softly up and looking in, I beheld my poor kinsman perch’d on his chair a-top of the table, in the midst of glasses, decanters, and desserts: his wig askew, his face white, save where, between the eyes, a medlar had hit and broken, and his glance shifting wildly between the two princes, who in easy postures, loose and tipsy, lounged on either side of him, and beat with their glasses on the board.
“Bravissimo! More, Master Carter—more!”
“O mammy, O nunky, here’s cousin Jack Frog— With a fa-la—”
I lifted my knuckles and tapp’d on the pane; whereon Prince Maurice starts up with an oath, and coming to the window, flings it open.
“Pardon, your Highness,” said I, and pull’d myself past him into the room, as cool as you please.
’Twas worth while to see their surprise. Prince Maurice ran back to the table for his sword: his brother (being more thoroughly drunk) dropped a decanter on the floor, and lay back staring in his chair. While as for my kinsman, he sat with mouth wide and eyes starting, as tho’ I were a very ghost. In the which embarrassment I took occasion to say, very politely—
“Good evening, nunky!”
“Who the devil is this?” gasps Prince Rupert.
“Why the fact is, your Highnesses,” answered I, stepping up and laying my sword on the table, while I pour’d out a glass, “Master Timothy Carter here is my guardian, and has the small sum of L200 in his possession for my use, of which I happen to-night to stand in immediate need. So you see—” I finished the sentence by tossing off a glass. “This is rare stuff!” I said.