“I am not offended with you, child,” says the colonel. “I know you did not intend to offend me.”
“No man, I believe, dares intend it,” said Booth.
“I believe so too,” said the colonel; “d—n me, I know it. But you know, child, how tender I am on this subject. If I had been ever married myself, I should have cleft the man’s skull who had dared look wantonly at my wife.”
“It is certainly the most cruel of all injuries,” said Booth. “How finely doth Shakespeare express it in his Othello!
‘But there, where I had treasured up my soul.’”
“That Shakespeare,” cries the colonel, “was a fine fellow. He was a very pretty poet indeed. Was it not Shakespeare that wrote the play about Hotspur? You must remember these lines. I got them almost by heart at the playhouse; for I never missed that play whenever it was acted, if I was in town:—
By Heav’n it was an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour into the full moon,
Or drive into the bottomless deep.
And—and—faith, I have almost forgot them; but I know it is something about saving your honour from drowning—O! it is very fine! I say, d—n me, the man that writ those lines was the greatest poet the world ever produced. There is dignity of expression and emphasis of thinking, d—n me.”
Booth assented to the colonel’s criticism, and then cried, “I wish, colonel, you would be so kind to give me that letter.” The colonel answered, if he had any particular use for it he would give it him with all his heart, and presently delivered it; and soon afterwards they parted.
Several passages now struck all at once upon Booth’s mind, which gave him great uneasiness. He became confident now that he had mistaken one colonel for another; and, though he could not account for the letter’s getting into those hands from whom Bath had taken it (indeed James had dropt it out of his pocket), yet a thousand circumstances left him no room to doubt the identity of the person, who was a man much more liable to raise the suspicion of a husband than honest Bath, who would at any time have rather fought with a man than lain with a woman.