“My good man,” quoth Onyx, who now felt the absurdity of the affair, “I know nothing of all this—believe me there is a mistake. Who sent you here?”
“Massa Smoothpate,” roared Charley, “Massa Smoothpate, he who neber tell lie to nobody, Massa Smoothpate sent me, sir, so de debil if you no give up de bell I sall....”
“Mr Smoothpate—oh ho!” sung out Steady, ‘I see, I see’—Finally the affair was cleared up, a little hush-money made him snug, and Charley having got back his instrument, bore no malice, so he and Steady resumed their former friendly footing—the “statu quo ante bellum.”
Another story and I have done.
About a week after this, several of the same party again met at dinner, when my excellent friend Mr Nicodemus amused us exceedingly by the following story, which, for want of a better title, I shall relate under the head of:
A Slippery Youth
“We all know,” quoth old Nic, “that house robberies have been very rife of late, and on peril even of having the laugh against me, I will tell you how I suffered, no longer than three nights ago; so, Tom Cringle, will you and Bang have the charity to hold your tongues, and be instructed?
“Old Gelid, Longtram, Steady, and myself, had been eating ratoons, at the Fortner’s domicile, and it was about nine in the evening when I got home. We had taken next to no wine, a pint of Madeira apiece during dinner, and six bottles of claret between us afterwards, so I went to bed as cool as a cucumber, and slept soundly for several hours, until awakened by my old gander—now do be quiet, Cringle—by my old watchman of a gander, cackling like a hero. I struck my repeater—half past one so I turned myself, and was once more falling over into the arms of Morpheus, when I thought I saw some dark object flit silently across the open window that looks into the piazza, between me and the deep blue and as yet moonless sky. This somewhat startled me, but it might have been one of the servants. Still I got up and looked out, but I could see nothing. It did certainly strike me once or twice, that there was some dark object cowering in the deep gloom caused by the shade of the orange tree at the end of the piazza, but I persuaded myself it was fancy, and once more slipped into my nest. However, the circumstance had put sleep to flight. Half an hour might have passed, and the deep dark purity of the eastern sky was rapidly quickening into a greenish azure, the forerunner of the rising moon,” (“oh, confound your poetry,” said Rubiochico,) “which was fast swamping the sparkling stars, like a bright river flowing over diamonds, when the old gander again set up his gabblement and trumpeted more loudly than before. ‘If you were not so tough, my noisy old cock’—thought I—‘next Michaelmas should be your last.’ So I now resolutely shut my eyes, and tried to sleep perforce, in which usually fruitless attempt, I was actually beginning to succeed, do you know, when a strong odour of palm oil came through the window, and on opening my eyes, I saw by the increasing light a naked negro standing at it, with his head and shoulders in sharp relief against the pale broad disk of the moon, at that moment just peering over the dark summit of the Long mountain.
“I rubbed my eyes, and looked again; the dark figure was still there, but as if aware that some one was on the watch, it gradually sank down, until nothing but the round bullet head appeared above the window sill. This was trying enough, but I made an effort, and lay still. The stratagem succeeded; the figure, deceived by my feigned snoring and quietude, slowly rose, and once more stood erect. Presently it slipped one foot into the room, and then another, but so noiselessly that when I saw the black figure standing before me on the floor, I had some misgivings as to its being really a being of this world. However, I had small space for speculation, when it slid past the foot of the bed towards my open bureau—I seized the opportunity—started up—turned the key of the door—and planted myself right between the thief and the open window. ‘Now, you scoundrel, surrender, or I will murder you on the spot.’ I had scarcely spoken the word, when with the speed of light, the fellow threw himself on me—we closed—I fell—when, clip, he slipped through my fingers like an eel—bolted through the window—cleared the balcony at a bound, and disappeared. The thief had stripped himself as naked as he was born, and soaped his woolly scull, and smeared his whole corpus with palm oil, so that in the struggle I was charmingly lubricated.”
Nicodemus here lay back on his chair, evidently desirous of our considering this the whole of the story, but he was not to be let off so easily, for presently Longtram, with a wicked twinkle of his eye, chimed in.