After considerable reflection, the plan that suggested itself to him was to proceed to some riverside station, hire a wherry, work his way down stream an indefinite distance; and then, sitting on the thwarts, neatly and philosophically put a weight in his pocket and a bullet in his head, and so overboard.
Ordinarily, he permitted himself some nausea and ill-temper after a night’s debauch. This morning he would have none of them.
“It would be churlish,” he thought, “to hand in my credentials with an ill-grace. If I have represented his sable majesty faithfully, he has his own good reasons, no doubt, for recalling me.”
Therefore, to prove how the will can overcrow the nerve, he whistled on his way, and was very affable and kindly to all his fellows with whom he came in contact. They were not many at that early hour. An amazed roysterer waking on a step; a kennel-scraper driving his broom before him at a shambling trot; Giles the apprentice, yawning over the shutters, and a pretty mop-squeezer or so who affected a demure propriety as he waved a kiss to them in passing, and blushed and giggled when he had gone by.
He turned into St. James’s Park, where Moll and Meg were tethering their cows at the sweet-stuff stalls; and bought and drank a glassful of white innocence with a sort of pleasant bravado of geniality. It made him feel good for the moment—pastoral and boyish once more.
“What’s your wish in life, Molly?” he said, turning with a smile to the girl who had supplied him.
“Sure your honour’s quizzing!”
“No, I’m not. In truth now?”
“Tea at Bagnigge Wells, then, with china and a gilt spoon.”
He burst out laughing and then looked grave.