“Hang me if you didn't play your part to admiration, but the best of the jest is, that on reporting the circumstance to Headley, on the following morning, he said I had acted perfectly right; so had you known this when you had that scene on the parade, you might have pleaded his sanction. However, all that is over. Now then for your adventure.”
“The tale is soon told,” began Ronayne. “On the evening when you and Von Vottenberg were so busy, the one in concocting his whisky-punch—the other in cutting up the Virginia, I was sacking my brain for a means to accomplish my desire to reach the farm, where I had a strong presentiment, from the lateness of the hour, without bringing any tidings of them, the fishing-party were, with Mr. Heywood and his people, in a state of siege, and I at length decided on what seemed to me to be the only available plan. I was not sorry to see you leave after taking your second glass, for I knew that I should have little difficulty in sewing up the doctor, whose tumbler I repeatedly filled, and made him drink off after sundry toasts, while he did not perceive—or was by no means sorry if he did—that I merely sipped from my own. When I thought he had swallowed enough to prevent him from interfering with my project, I bade him good night and left him, knowing well that in less than ten minutes he would be asleep. Instead, however, of going to bed, I hastened at once to preliminaries, having first got rid of my servant whom I did not wish to implicate, by making him acquainted with my intended absence. But tell me, did you examine my room at all the next day?”
“I did.”
“And found nothing missing?”
“Nothing. I scouted everywhere, and found only yourself wanting—the bed unrumpled, and everything in perfect bachelor order.”
“And that leather dress, my dear fellow, in which I once paid a visit to the camp of Winnebeg, from whose squaw, indeed, I had bought it. You know it generally hangs against the wall at the foot of my bed.”
“Ah! now I recollect, that was not there certainly, although I did not notice its absence then—so then, that was the dress you went out in, and I such a goose as not to remark it.”
“Because you know that I had had the precaution to throw a blanket over it in the most approved Pottawattamie style, while my features were colored with gambouge and Indian ink.”
“Well, say no more about that—I am ashamed to have been so taken in by a Johnny Raw. We will now suppose you kicked out of the Fort. Did I not kick you out,” he added humorously, “and say, begone, you drunken dog, and never show your ugly face here again!”
“On the contrary,” returned his junior in the same mocking strain, “you were but too glad to be civil when I threatened you with the 'gubbernor!'”