“O! vell! (much alarmed) it might be my bed-case, then!” (Whenever Mrs. Schwellenberg travels, she carries her bed in a large black leather case, behind her servants’ carriage.) “Very likely, ma’am.”
“Then, sir,” very angrily, “how come you by it?”
“Why, I’ll tell you, ma’am. I was just going to bed; so MY servant took one candle, and I had the other. I had just had my hair done, and my curls were just rolled up, and he was going away; but I turned about, by accident, and I saw a great lump in my bed; so I thought it was my clothes. ‘What do you put them there for?’ says I. ‘Sir,’ says he, ‘it looks as if there was a drunken man in the bed.’ ‘A drunken man?’ says I; ‘Take the poker, then, and knock him on the head!’”
“Knock him on the head?” interrupted Mrs. Schwellenberg, “What! when it might be some innocent person? Fie! Colonel Manners. I thought you had been too good-natured for such thing—to poker the people in the king’s house!”
“Then what business have they to get into my bed, ma’am? So then my man looked nearer, and he said, ‘Sir, why, here’s your night-cap and here’s the pillow!—and here’s a great, large lump of leather!’ ‘Shovel it all out!’ says I. ‘Sir,’ says he, ‘It’s Madame Schwellenberg’s! here’s her name on it.’ ‘Well, then,’ says I, ‘sell it, to-morrow, to the saddler.’”
“What! when you knew it was mine, sir? Upon my vord, you been ver good!” (bowing very low). “Well, ma’am, it’s all Colonel Wellbred, I dare say; so, suppose you and I were to take the law of him?”
“Not I, sir!” (Scornfully).
“Well, but let’s write him a letter, then, and frighten him: let’s tell him it’s sold, and he must make it good. You and I’ll do it together.”
“No, sir; you might do it yourself. I am not so familiar to write to gentlemens.”
“Why then, you shall only sign it, and I’ll frank it.”