"I'll tell you," answered Curtis. "You see, Sir Christopher was going to run away with Miss Mordaunt, Lady Hatfield's friend, and I found it out in one of my clever ways. So I resolved to baulk Sir Christopher; and I bribed this lady's-maid Charlotte—in fact, I gave her five hundred pounds and a gold watch, the hussey!—to go to the appointment, get into the carriage, personate Miss Julia Mordaunt, and keep up the farce until they got to St. Alban's, where me and a parcel of my friends were to be at the inn to receive them. That was to be the joke."
"And how did the joke turn so completely against yourself?" asked Tom.
"Why, me and my friends waited—and waited—and waited at the infernal hotel at St. Alban's; and no Sir Christopher—no Charlotte came. We had a glorious supper, and made a regular night of it. All next day we waited—and waited again; but no Sir Christopher—no Charlotte. 'What the devil can this mean?' thought I to myself. So I came up to London, leaving my friends at the inn at St. Alban's in pawn for the bill—for somehow or another none of us had money enough about us to settle it. Well, when I came back to town, I went home: that is, you know, to my uncle's house in Jermyn Street; and there I found a letter that had just come for me by the post. It was written from some town a good way north, and was from Sir Christopher. I began to think something was wrong; and sure enough there was! For, when I opened the letter, I found that my silly old uncle had written to thank me for throwing in his way a delightful and most amiable woman, who had consented to take his name and share his fortune. The letter went on to say that they were then pretty far on their road to Gretna, and that as they should stop at St. Alban's as they came back, I might be there, if I chose, to have the pleasure of handing my aunt out of the carriage. That was all said to irritate me, you know, Captain Sparks; and most likely that vixen Charlotte made Sir Christopher write the letter just to annoy me. But I'll cut them both dead; and we shall see what my precious aunt—for such she is by this time, I suppose—will say then!"
"This is really a very pleasant little adventure," cried Tom Rain. "But I think you carried your joke too far, Mr. Curtis; and so it has recoiled on yourself. Have you seen Mr. Torrens lately?"
"Not I!" exclaimed Curtis. "But don't you confess, Captain, that you carried matters a trifle too far that night? Never mind the two thousand pounds: I'm glad my old hunks of an uncle has lost that! But I allude to the affair of helping the gals to run away. I suppose you were in league with Villiers all the time?"
"What makes you think that Villiers had any thing to do with the matter?" inquired Rainford.
"Simply because I don't imagine you carried off the gals for your own sake. However," continued Frank, "I care but little about the matter now. I certainly liked Adelais very much at the time; but there are plenty of others in the world quite as handsome. Besides, I now see through all Sir Christopher's trickery in wanting me to marry Miss Torrens in such a deuce of a hurry, and in giving me a separate establishment. The old bird wanted to commit matrimony himself; and I should have been poked off with a few paltry hundreds a-year."
"And so you will now," said Tom. "Or matters may be even worse, after the trick you endeavoured to play upon your uncle."
"Not a bit of it!" cried Frank. "Had old Blunt's scheme succeeded, I should have been married to a portionless gal, and forced to live on whatever he chose to give me. Now that his project has failed, I am free and unshackled, and can secure myself a position by marriage. I might even look as high as my friend the Duke's niece; but she is horribly ill-tempered, and so I think of making an offer of my heart and hand—I can do the thing well if I like, you know, Captain—to Mrs. Goldberry, the widow I spoke of just now."
"The name sounds well, I confess," observed Tom. "But did your uncle never—I mean, did he not instruct his lawyer to adopt any proceedings about that little affair of the two thousand pounds?"