'At least,' said he, 'will you do me the favour of being at home for me to-morrow morning?'
'Perhaps I may,' replied I. 'So good night, master Bobby!'
The poet and the landlady did not return for half an hour. They told me that their delay was occasioned by their search for me; but I refused all explanation as to what happened after I had lost them.
Adieu.
LETTER XIV
Just as I had finished my last letter, his lordship entered my room, but saluted me coldly.
'I am informed,' said he, 'that you strayed from your party last night, and refused, afterwards, to give an account of yourself to the landlady. May I hope, that to me, who feel a personal interest in all your actions, you will be more communicative?'
'I regret,' said I, 'that circumstances put it out of my power to gratify your wishes. I foresee that you, like an Orville, or a Mortimer, will suspect and asperse your mistress. But the Sun shall return, the mist disperse, and the landscape laugh again.'
'Confound your metaphors! 'cried he, discarding attitude and elegance in an instant. 'Do you hope to hide your cunning under mists and laughing landscapes? But I am not to be gulled; I am not to be done. No going it upon me, I say. Tell me directly, madam, where you were, and with whom; or by the devil of devils, you shall repent it finely.'
I was thunderstruck. 'Sir,' said I, 'you have agitated the gentle air with the concussion of inelegant oaths and idioms, uttered in the most ungraceful manner. Sir, your vulgarity is unpardonable, and we now part for ever.'