There was nothing for me to do but to walk along beside him. Page [31]
When the play was over, we sat still until the Hawkshaw party had passed out, and then, more for the sake of bravado, I think, than inclination, Giles ran pell-mell to the stage door, where he made one of a mob of gentlemen to see the divine Sylvia to her chair. And, to my alarm, as soon as the lady was within and the curtain drawn, he tipped the wink to one of the chairmen, who silently gave up his place, and Giles, taking up the pole, trudged off, assisting to carry his portly mistress. There was nothing for me to do but to walk along beside him amid the rattle and roar of coaches, the shouting of the hackney coachmen, the pushing and jostling of chairmen and linkboys, and all the confusion that attends the emptying of a London playhouse. Mrs. Trenchard’s door was not far away, and when she was put down, and Giles sneaked off, I observed the handsome Captain Overton standing at the turn of the street laughing at him. Giles, who was so timid in his love, was bold enough in his wrath, and stepping up to Overton said coolly:
“Sir, I perceive you are smiling. Who is the harlequin that amuses you, may I ask?”
“You, sir,” promptly answered Overton.
“You are too good,” responded Giles, “and I have before pinked my man in beauty’s quarrel,”—and then he slapped Overton in the mouth. The next thing I knew their two swords were flashing in the moonlight. I stood paralyzed with fear. Not so a couple of burly watchmen, who, running forward, clutched the offenders and dragged them apart.
But the two late enemies, making common cause against the watchmen, fought them off; and when the watchmen desisted from the fight to spring their rattles for assistance, both Giles and the officer ran down a dark alley, followed by me as fast as my short legs would carry me, and soon all three of us were huddled together in the porch of a church, some distance away from the scene of the fracas.
“Neatly done,” remarked Overton with a smile, to Giles. “I should have been in that brawny fellow’s clutches now, but for the clip over the head you gave him.”
“You did your share, sir,” politely responded Giles.
“But time presses and our affairs must be settled,” said Overton; “here is my card. It is too dark to read it, but I am Captain Philip Overton, of the Second Life Guards.”