The appearance of the two articles of dress just specified, determined the gallant officer how to act; and his arrangements were made with almost lightning speed.
The reader will recollect that he had no clothes at the moment to put off before he put others on—he having sought the landlady’s room in his shirt, stockings, and slippers. To slip into the silk dress was therefore the work of an instant: to assume the Leghorn bonnet was an affair accomplished with equal speed;—and to ransack the widow’s drawers for a shawl was a matter scarcely occupying ten seconds. Then, drawing the veil in thick folds over his moustachioed and whiskered countenance with one hand, and grasping Mrs. Rudd’s parasol in the other, Captain O’Blunderbuss took a hasty survey of himself in the glass, and was perfectly satisfied with the result.
We have before stated that Mrs. Rudd was very tall, starch, and prim; and the reader is aware that Captain O’Blunderbuss was no dwarf—neither was he particularly stout. Thus, although he certainly appeared a very colossal woman, he might still pass as one at a pinch—and surely need was never more pinching than on the present occasion. At all events he was resolved to make the attempt; and the exciting nature of the incident was just of the kind which he particularly relished—though, perhaps, he would rather have had the fun without the danger of the thing.
In the meantime he had not been in a state of ignorance of what was passing on the landing of the floor below; for the bailiffs, having ascended to that height, stopped at his own chamber door, at which they knocked. But receiving no answer, the one with the hoarse voice exclaimed, “Captain O’Blunderbuss, I’ve got a message for you wery particklar from a friend of your’n.”
Still there was no response; and the man, addressing himself to the servant-girl, asked her if she were sure that the captain was at home.
“I’m certain he is,” was the reply; “because he’s sent out his—his—trousers to be mended, and is lying a-bed till they come back.”
“But mayn’t he have another pair?” demanded the bailiff.
“I don’t b’lieve he have,” said the girl: “leastways, I never see more than one either on or off him.”
“Then the captain is at home,” growled the sheriff’s-officer; “and we must do our dooty, Tom.”
These last words were evidently addressed by the speaker to his companion; and the captain comprehended that the forcing of the door would be the next step. Nor was he wrong in his conjecture;—for, before the servant girl could divine the intention of the two men, they had effected an entrance into the chamber which the gallant officer had only quitted three minutes previously.