After dinner we grew exceedingly merry. Vincent punned and quoted; we laughed and applauded; and our Burgundy went round with an alacrity, to which every new joke gave an additional impetus. Monsieur Jocko was by no means the dullest in the party; he cracked his nuts with as much grace as we did our jests, and grinned and chatted as facetiously as the best of us. After coffee we were all so pleased with one another, that we resolved not to separate, and accordingly we adjourned to my rooms, Jocko and all, to find new revelries and grow brilliant over Curacoa punch.
We entered my salon with a roar, and set Bedos to work at the punch forthwith. Bedos, that Ganymede of a valet, had himself but just arrived, and was unlocking the door as we entered. We soon blew up a glorious fire, and our spirits brightened in proportion. Monsieur Jocko sate on Vincent’s knee—Ne monstrum, as he classically termed it. One of our compotatores was playing with it. Jocko grew suddenly in earnest—a grin—a scratch and a bite, were the work of a moment.
“Ne quid nimis—now,” said Vincent, gravely, instead of endeavouring to soothe the afflicted party, who grew into a towering passion. Nothing but Jocko’s absolute disgrace could indeed have saved his life from the vengeance of the sufferer.
“Where shall we banish him?” said Vincent.
“Oh,” I replied, “put him out in that back passage; the outer door is shut; he’ll be quite safe;” and to the passage he was therefore immediately consigned.
It was in this place, the reader will remember, that the hapless Dame du Chateau was at that very instant in “durance vile.” Bedos, who took the condemned monkey, opened the door, thrust Jocko in, and closed it again. Meanwhile we resumed our merriment.
“Nunc est bibendum,” said Vincent, as Bedos placed the punch on the table. “Give us a toast, Dartmore.”
Lord Dartmore was a young man, with tremendous spirits, which made up for wit. He was just about to reply, when a loud shriek was heard from Jocko’s place of banishment: a sort of scramble ensued, and the next moment the door was thrown violently open, and in rushed the terrified landlady, screaming like a sea-gull, and bearing Jocko aloft upon her shoulders, from which “bad eminence” he was grinning and chattering with the fury of fifty devils. She ran twice round the room, and then sunk on the floor in hysterics. We lost no time in hastening to her assistance; but the warlike Jocko, still sitting upon her, refused to permit one of us to approach. There he sat, turning from side to side, showing his sharp, white teeth, and uttering from time to time the most menacing and diabolical sounds.
“What the deuce shall we do?” cried Dartmore.
“Do?” said Vincent, who was convulsed with laughter, and yet endeavouring to speak gravely; “why, watch like L. Opimius, ‘ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet.’”