Cluffe, who was a bit of a boaster, had bragged, one evening at mess, of his swimming, which he said was famous in his school days; 'twas a lie, but Puddock believed it implicitly.
'Thank you!' roared Cluffe. 'Swim, indeed!—buttoned up this way—and—and the gout too.'
'I say, Cluffe, save the guitar, if you can,' said Puddock.
In reply, Cluffe cursed that instrument through his teeth, with positive fury, and its owner; and, indeed, he was so incensed at this unfeeling request, that if he had known where it was, I think he would have gone nigh to smash it on Puddock's head, or at least, like the 'Minstrel Boy,' to tear its chords asunder; for Cluffe was hot, especially when he was frightened. But he forgot—though it was hanging at that moment by a pretty scarlet and gold ribbon about his neck.
'Guitar be diddled!' cried he; ''tis gone—where we're going—to the bottom. What devil possessed you, Sir, to drown us this way?'
Puddock sighed. They were passing at this moment the quiet banks of the pleasant meadow of Belmont, and the lights twinkled from the bow-window in the drawing-room. I don't know whether Puddock saw them—Cluffe certainly did not.
'Hallo! hallo!—a rope!' cried Cluffe, who had hit upon this desperate expedient for raising the neighbourhood. 'A rope—a rope! hallo! hallo!—a ro-o-o-ope!'
And Aunt Becky, who heard the wild whooping, mistook it for drunken fellows at their diversions, and delivered her sentiments in the drawing-room accordingly.