"Be the power-rs! but we'll see ye safe over to the Binch," cried Captain O'Blunderbuss; "for it may be that I shall have to thrash the Marshal or skin a tur-rnkey to renther the people dacently civil in that iligant istablishment."
"Yes—you come with me, captain," said Frank, who had been thinking of some means to separate his amiable wife and his devoted friend. "You can put Mrs. C. into a hackney-coach; and to-morrow morning, my dear," he added, turning towards his spouse, "you can look out for a lodging somewhere in the neighbourhood of the prison."
"But you don't mean me to remain all alone to-night in Baker Street, with those odious officers in the house?" exclaimed Mrs. Curtis, not admiring the proposed arrangement.
"It would not be proper for the captain to stay in the house now that I am away," said Frank, hastily, and without daring to look at his gallant friend: indeed, scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when he was surprised at his courage in having dared to utter them.
Fortunately the captain took the observation in good part, and even expressed his approval of it; for it struck the martial gentleman that he should stand a much better chance of amusing himself with Frank Curtis in the Bench, with the interior arrangements of which he was pretty well acquainted from old experience, than in the society of Mrs. Curtis in Baker Street. The lady could not, therefore, offer any farther opposition to the arrangement proposed; but she darted an angry look upon the captain, who responded by one of earnest appeal to her mercy.
She now took leave of her husband, and was escorted by Captain O'Blunderbuss to the nearest coach-stand; and as some time elapsed ere he returned to the spunging-house, it is presumable that he had a little difficulty in making his peace with her.
At length, however, he did re-appear; and, the messenger having conveyed the portmanteau over to the public-house opposite, for which he only charged a shilling, the prisoner proceeded thither in company with Mr. MacGrab and Captain O'Blunderbuss, Pepperton bidding them farewell at the door.
In a little front parlour on the first floor of the public-house alluded to, sate half-a-dozen seedy-looking men, who were delectably occupied in smoking cigars and drinking hot gin-and-water. Their conversation was doubtless very amusing to themselves; but it would have been very boring to strangers;—for the topic seemed entirely limited to what had taken place that day at the Insolvent Debtors' Court, or at the Judges' Chambers. There, in that same room, were those men accustomed to meet every afternoon (Sunday excepted), at about the same hour; and their discourse was invariably on the same subjects. They were tipstaffs—or, more properly speaking, perhaps, tipstaves: they lived in the atmosphere of debtors' prisons and law-courts;—and all their information was circumscribed to the transactions thereof. When they were not hovering about the lobbies of the Fleet or the Bench, they were "down at Westminster," or "up at Portugal Street;" and if not in any of those places—why, then they were at the public-house.
It was to one of these worthies that MacGrab introduced Mr. Francis Curtis; and as the tipstaff thus particularised had not finished his cigar nor his gin-and-water, Mr. Frank Curtis and Captain O'Blunderbuss sate down to keep him company till he had. Half an hour afterwards a hackney-coach was sent for; and the prisoner, his gallant friend, and the officer were speedily on their road to the King's Bench prison.
Curtis spoke but little during the transit: he felt nervous at the idea of going to his new home. But the captain rattled away as if he were determined to speak for himself and his friend both; and the tipstaff was still in a state of uncertainty as to whether he should set the gallant gentleman down as a very extraordinary personage, or as a most wondrous liar, when the vehicle stopped at a little low door in a gloomy brick wall.