"Certainly. I will swear to it," says the old fellow. "I heard him with these ears say he was Ryder."
"Then is our business done," says the trap, "and I'm not sorry, considering the night." And his men surrounded my man and seized him. His face was as pale as the snow, and he had a horrid, frightened look. Maybe he was some attorney's clerk that had robbed his master, and was in flight. I cared not, and I never knew; and he went off silent with his captors on the way to the Triple Beam, which he deserved for a bungling, bragging nincompoop.
But now we were alone, and the guineas and the jewels were in my pockets. Lord, I love the jingle of 'em, and so I took my counsel forthwith.
"Sir," says I to the old gentleman, "here be your purse and your papers; and to you, sir," says I to Harringay, "I restore the smelling-salts, that is your charge. Miss, this, I'll warrant, is your jewels, the which I would advise you to place in a better security than heretofore. And now justice is done, and we conclude with a merry evening."
"But there is my purse!" says Harringay, in an amaze. "My purse with fifty guineas."
"Why, your purse must be where your heart is, in your boots," says I contemptuously, and called to the coachman.
"Give me that nag," says I.
And before he understood I was on the beast, and, doffing to miss and her mother, rode off into the snowy night with a peal of laughter.