Albert, at this moment, was in a state of excitement impossible to be described. He paid the waterman immediately Gray’s wherry turned its head towards the shore, and sat with his hands upon the coat, as ready as a harlequin in a pantomime to throw it off, and assume his proper appearance; but then Gray might look round, and he felt the necessity of waiting until he had actually ascended the stairs. Oh, what an agony of suspense was that brief period!
At length Gray turned sharp round to his right hand when he got to the top of the steps, and with the speed of lightning Albert Seyton threw off the coat and night-cap, and sprung after him to the intense astonishment of Gray’s waterman, who stood with his mouth wide open, and his eyes staring out of his head like those of a boiled fish, for nearly two minutes before he could ejaculate,—
“Well, I never—there’s ago—in all my blessed born days I never. Who the devil’s that?”
“Ah, your’s hit it now,” said Albert’s waterman, as he deliberately put on the coat.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been giving the devil a coat. Didn’t you see how quick we went?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he was steering with his tail all the time, so you see I’d nothing to do but to pull away.”
CHAPTER XCIII.
Gray at Home.—Albert’s Joy and Exultation.—The Meeting in the Old Door Way.