“Now,” thought both Captain O’Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis at the same time, “we shall see the bubble burst very shortly; and it will transpire who our two mad friends really are.”
The summons at the front-door was speedily answered by the appearance of Fitzgeorge in his plain clothes and a couple of footmen in livery, all of whom had waited up the whole night in expectation of the probable return of their master.
As for Fitzgeorge, he ran up to the door of the cab, and perceiving Sir Gilbert inside, exclaimed with unaffected delight, “Thank God! your lordship’s scheme has proved triumphant!”
At these words Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Frank Curtis uttered involuntary ejaculations of astonishment: for they began to think that one of their new friends was really a nobleman after all, and that they might neither of them prove to be lunatics in the long run.
Leaping from the cab, Trevelyan invited the gallant gentleman and his companion to enter the house, observing, with a laugh, “However insane we may all be, we will at least exercise the common prudence of taking a little refreshment after all the hard work and momentous proceedings of the night.”
In a few instants the Captain and Frank found themselves conducted into an elegantly furnished apartment, in the midst of which was a table laid out with costly plate, and spread with a cold repast consisting of dainties that made their months water even to gaze upon. It was likewise a source of great satisfaction to the two gentlemen to behold a buffet well stored with wine and spirits, amongst which latter the Captain had no difficulty in recognising some poteen of the real orthodox colour.
The nobleman and his guests took their seats at table, and did ample justice alike to viands and to wine. Indeed, it was amazingly refreshing to behold the appetite with which the Captain and Frank Curtis addressed themselves to the former, and the zest with which they partook of the latter. They no longer believed that either Trevelyan or Sir Gilbert was mad; and when the former gave them the whole particulars of the story which he had only half finished in the cab, they laughed heartily at the misconceptions they had formed.
Under the influence of the poteen, which was duly produced after supper,—if supper such a meal could called, as it was now long past three o’clock in the morning,—the Captain and Frank Curtis became particularly talkative; when it appeared that, existing under grievous apprehension of certain formidable beings denominated “sheriff’s officers,” they had hired lodgings in the classic region of Globe Town, and that, having spent the evening and best portion of the night at a public-house in the Hackney Road, they were taking a short cut homeward, past the Doctor’s house, when they became the witnesses of the scene wherein they immediately after bore so distinguished a part.
From these and other revelations, which the Captain purposely suffered to ooze out as if quite unintentionally, Trevelyan and Sir Gilbert gleaned sufficient to convince them that their new friends were “gentlemen under a cloud;” and they were not sorry at having ascertained a fact which at once placed them in a position to testify their gratitude for the services of the night.
Accordingly, after exchanging a few words in a low tone with Sir Gilbert, Lord William Trevelyan wrote something upon a slip of paper, and then addressed Captain O’Blunderbuss and Frank Curtis in the following manner:—