"Damme, I won't!" said I. "I want no cutpurses in my company."
"Come, Captain," says he, protesting, for he had a fear of me, and knew of my repute on many roads. "Fair play and equality in a trade," says he.
I was on the point to give him the rough edge of my tongue—for it was like his impudence to try cozening me—when down the stairs into the passage came a man, walking very stiffly, and with his head in the air. I stopped at once, for I knew not who he might be, and down he stepped into the light, showing a foppish sort of a face, hair very particularly curled, and a becoming dress. No sooner did I clap eyes on him than I knew what kidney he was, and that he was not worth two blinks of the ogles, as they say. So I turned my back on him and was beginning on Costley again, when I was surprised by the girl's voice crying out from the entrance behind me.
"What the devil?" says I, flying about, for I thought she was insulted maybe by some of Costley's fellows, and I ran to the door. But there was she with her arms about the neck of this Jack-a-dandy.
"What's this, miss?" said I, beginning to think there was some truth in old Nunky's words after all; and at that she stepped into the inn, in her excitement, and I saw her plainly for the first time. Lord! there was nothing in her face that would not have convinced any Court at Old Bailey forthright. She was prettily handsome, like a doll that turns eyes up or down and smiles out of pink cheeks, in which were two dimples mighty enticing. Up she comes in a rush, almost breathless, and breaks out to me,—
"'Tis he; 'tis he, sir!"
"Who the devil is he?" said I, sharply.
"'Tis Mr Riseley," she says, somewhat abashed. "He has been supping here, and is setting forth for his lodging."
"I commend his discretion," I said dryly; "an excellent good place for supper, so it is, specially for young bloods like that. Well," says I, "since you're content, as it seems, I will leave you and young Cupid, and be about my business."
At that she looked dumbfounded. "But—" she begins, stammering, and paused.