“Perfectly.”
“And yet you go and put your head into the lion’s mouth?”
“I would do more to expose a villain. I would go all lengths to right an injured man. He is no more mad than I am.”
“That seems probable.”
He unfolded a second paper from the other, and pointing silently to a paragraph, handed it to me.
“The king” (I read from the Gazette) “has bestowed the vacant garter upon the newly created Marquis of Synge;” and a little lower down: “It is stated that the Earl of Herring has been relieved, at his own request, of all offices which he held under the Crown. His lordship is understood to have long contemplated a complete retirement from public life.”
I shrieked with laughter. I danced about the room, waving the paper over my head. The noise I made brought up one of two gentlemen who lived below. He put his head in at the door, with a leer and a grin: “O, a thousand pardons!” said he; “I thought you was alone, and that something had happened”—and he vanished.
“He thought something had happened!” groaned Bob dismally; and, taking the paper from me, he read out elsewhere: “His Majesty’s final decision is supposed not unconnected with the esclandres of a certain notorious lady, which have exercised the public curiosity for some time past, and which culminated on Saturday sennight in an attack too obvious in its direction to be overlooked.”
I heard, glistening.
“Well, I told him I recognised my debt, and should pay him,” I said.