And then I did my best to explain the dangers of his position, and the folly of persisting in his present course of discontent and eccentricity.
“If you do not mind,” I concluded seriously, “you will be treated to a strong dose of Medicated Schlafstrank some of these days, and then where will you be?”
Poor Augustus! Oh! how frightened he was! We were in the public gardens, and he staggered to a seat before he could say a word. Then he gasped, “Oh, Lord! deliver me from this land of iniquity! Help me to get home to my poor old mother, and I’ll never swear at her again! She shall have the tickets for her gold watch and chain which I pawned, and if they’ll take me on in the shop again I’ll promise to work honestly, and pay for that suit of clothes I got on tick. And, oh, Lord, I’ll turn up every penny of the money I cleared in that thimble-rigging business on Leger day. And that money I owe to the hotel-keeper, who thought I was Lord Hastings. I’ll pay every farthing of it. Oh, Lord! let me get out of this very soon, or its two to one bar one that old Molly Jones will never see her son again!”
Here was a revelation! I could scarcely credit my ears. But the very evident terror of the man before me had brought out such truths as are only wrung from such lips as his by dire emergency, and I involuntarily recoiled from too near contact with an avowed blackguard, imposter, and cheat.
He noticed my gesture of repulsion, and cried imploringly, “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t leave me! Help me to get out of this mess.”
“I do not see what further help I can afford you,” I responded coldly. “Your fate depends upon your own conduct.”
“Ah, but there’s no knowing what might happen, no matter what I say or do,” he protested. “I must clear out somehow. And listen. I really have a plan. The reason I made a row about getting my own clothes back was because there was a tiny paper packet in the left waistcoat pocket. I had it given me at that opium den I was in in Soho. The fellow that gave it me told me that it was a very wonderful sort of snuff, that would bring even funnier things to pass than Hasheesh could. I only remembered it the other day, and I thought it might perhaps help me to get home again. But it looks so queer that I am rather frightened of it. It might be poison, you know, and I thought I would see what you thought about it, before trusting myself to snuff any of it.”
As he spoke he handed me the little paper parcel he had mentioned, and I examined it somewhat curiously. It certainly was uninviting, having a black and slimy appearance not at all pleasant to the eye. Still, it might smell much nicer than it looked, and as I fancied that I caught a faint, subtle aroma, I held the stuff to my nose, drew in a most delightful perfume, and—awoke in my own study, surrounded by nineteenth century magazines and newspapers, and shivering all over; for I had let the fire go out during my long nap.
