"Or cry out, stop thief!" added I. "For my part I have more reasons than one for believing the colonel to be very harmless in a carriage, or I should not have ventured. I, too, have heard of his gallant feats of prowess in chariots and vis-à-vis! but I will tell you a story:—There was a pretty, elegant Frenchwoman joined my party one night after the Opera, and explained to me the mere accident which threw her on my charity for a safe conveyance home. I had already Fanny, Julia, and little Fanny, as we called my young niece, to carry home, and only a chariot. What was to be done? The rain fell in torrents. It was on a Tuesday night, and there was nobody in the round room that anybody knew, as that fool of a Brummell used to say, except Colonel Berkeley, who joined us immediately. In spite of the most prolific account I had heard of the gay colonel, I considered my friend old enough to take care of herself: and, as to sending her three miles in such a costume, at such an hour, and in such weather, the thing was out of the question: so I told Berkeley that I must intrude on his politeness to set my friend down. 'To oblige you, with great pleasure,' was his prompt reply, before he had even looked in the face of the young Frenchwoman, to whom I presented him, when he assured her his coachman waited for her commands.
"The next morning I made it a point to call and inquire after madame's health. She thanked me for having procured her so polite an acquaintance. 'I hope he was polite,' said I, 'for, to tell you the truth, I very unwillingly placed you under his protection.' 'Why?' asked my friend. 'To be frank with you,' I replied, 'Colonel Berkeley is said to be such a terrible fellow that no woman can safely remain a single instant tête-à-tête with him, particularly in a carriage. I understand he attacks both old and young, virtuous and wicked, handsome and ugly, maid, wife and widow.'
"'And sal I be de only exception?' asked the Frenchwoman, in real dismay.
"'What then,' I inquired, in astonishment, 'are you sorry he was not impudent to you?' 'I do not conceive what you have told me, impudence,' continued the Frenchwoman, 'nous prenons cela autrement, en France. De only impudence vat I sal never forgive, is dat Colonel Berkeley have presumed to make me de exception and, if I ever meet him in de street, je lui cracherai au nez.'
"'Non pas! non pas!' rejoined I, 'you are too pretty to have been an exception. It is a mere false character they have given the colonel, or may be he set it about himself. For my part, I will take the first opportunity of getting into his carriage, in order to convince you of another exception, that you may hold up your head with the best of us.'" This night has already proved I was right.
"Oh, Lord, what a falling off is here!" said Deerhurst to Berkeley.
"I had no desire for your Frenchwoman," replied the colonel, "and, as for you, if you would not fall in love with me some time ago, when I was your very humble servant, what chance had I after you had seen me making love to Sophia? Besides my poor brother Augustus is going mad for you, Harriette, and, apropos of him, you really treat him very ill."
"I mean to have that young gentleman confined to a madhouse," said I, "if he conducts himself in such a strange way again as he did last Saturday; throwing himself on his knees in my box, and acting his Cheltenham-tragedies at the opera."
"He is very handsome," Deerhurst observed.