“Don’t you tell Mrs. Pomfret where you found the candle when you came into the room,” said he to Franklin.
“If she asks me, you know I must tell the truth,” replied he.
“Must!” repeated Felix, sneeringly; “what, you must be a tell-tale!”
“No, I never told any tales of anybody, and I should be very sorry to get anyone into a scrape; but for all that I shall not tell a lie, either for myself or anybody else, let you call me what names you will.”
“But if I were to give you something that you would like,” said Corkscrew—“something that I know you would like!” repeated Felix.
“Nothing you can give me will do,” answered Franklin, steadily, “so it is useless to say any more about it—I hope I shall not be questioned.”
In this hope he was mistaken; for the first thing Mrs. Pomfret did in the morning was to come into the room to examine and deplore the burnt curtains, whilst Corkscrew stood by, endeavouring to exculpate himself by all the excuses he could invent.
Mrs. Pomfret, however, though sometimes blinded by her prejudices, was no fool; and it was absolutely impossible to make her believe that a candle, which had been left on the hearth, where Corkscrew protested he had left it, could have set curtains on fire which were at least six feet distant. Turning short round to Franklin, she desired that he would show her where he found the candle when he came into the room. He took up the candlestick; but the moment the housekeeper cast her eye upon it, she snatched it from his hands; “How did this candlestick come here? This was not the candlestick you found here last night,” cried she. “Yes, indeed it was,” answered Franklin. “That is impossible,” retorted she, vehemently, “for I left this candlestick with my own hands last night, in the hall, the last thing I did, after you,” said she, turning to the butler, “was gone to bed—I’m sure of it—Nay, don’t you recollect my taking this japanned candlestick out of your hand, and making you to go up to bed with the brass one, and I bolted the door at the stair-head after you?”
This was all very true; but Corkscrew had afterwards gone down from his room by a back staircase, unbolted that door, and, upon his return from the alehouse, had taken the japanned candlestick by mistake upstairs, and had left the brass one in its stead upon the hall table.
“Oh, ma’am,” said Felix, “indeed you forget; for Mr. Corkscrew came into my room to desire me to call him betimes in the morning, and I happened to take particular notice, and he had the japanned candlestick in his hand, and that was just as I heard you, bolting the door. Indeed, ma’am you forget.”