“Permit me to shake hands with you, Captain O’Blunderbuss,” said the young nobleman; “and with you also, Mr. Curtis. You have rendered me and my friend a service which we cannot easily forget.”
“And which we shall never seek to forget,” added the baronet, emphatically; and then there was a general shaking of hands inside the cab.
Lord William Trevelyan next proceeded to inform his new friends who he and Sir Gilbert Heathcote were; and the reader may conceive the huge delight experienced by Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank Curtis when they found themselves in the company of a real nobleman and a real baronet.
“And now, my lor-r-d,” said the gallant officer, “will ye be so obleeging as to explain to us what house that was where all the pother took place, and what was the maning of the pother itself: for, be the holy poker-r! I can’t make head or tail of it!”
“The fact is,” responded Lord William Trevelyan, “it was a mad-house.”
“A mad-house!” ejaculated Mr. Frank Curtis, starting as if stung by a serpent lurking in the straw at the bottom of the cab—while a cold tremor came over him; for it instantly struck him that he and his Irish companion had been instrumental in the escape of a couple of lunatics.
“A mad-house!” repeated the Captain, immediately entertaining the same idea, although not sharing the apprehensions of his friend.
“Neither more nor less,” continued Trevelyan, perfectly unaware of the impression which his words had produced upon the two gentlemen: for, as the inside of the cab was quite dark, he could not observe the change that took place in their countenances.
“You—you—don’t mean to—to—say,” stammered Curtis, fidgetting uncommonly, and thrusting his hand outside the window to grasp the handle of the door: for he began to think that the sooner he emancipated himself from the cab, the better;—“you—you——”
“Hould your tongue, ye spalpeen!” vociferated the Captain, who, fully acquainted with the character of his friend, guessed pretty accurately all that was passing in his mind: for the worthy Irishman, on his part, was determined not to separate from his new friends, whether they were lunatics or not, until he had ascertained if any thing was to be got out of them either in the shape of money or whiskey, or both;—“hould your tongue, ye spalpeen! and let’s hear what his lor-rdship has to say upon the matther.”