“I procured them this evening at the Franklin house in Second Street, as you will learn by sending some one to inquire, merely to attend the ball.”
A second exclamation broke from Mrs. Loring: “Then ’t was you I mistook for—Sir William, I thought ’t was you from his figure.”
Again the general laughed. “Ho, Loring,” said he to one of the officers. “What say you to that?”
“Take and hang me, or send me to the pest hole you kill your prisoners in, but let me get away from here,” raged Jack, white with passion, as he gave a futile wrench in an attempt to free his hands.
“Art so anxious to be hanged, boy?”
“’T is a fit end to a life begun as mine was!” answered the aide.
“Oh, Sir William,” spoke up Janice,” he did not come to spy, but only to see me. You will not hang him for that, surely?"
“Yoicks! Must you snare, even into the hangman’s noose, every one that looks but at you, Miss Janice? If the day ever comes when the innocent no longer swing for the guilty, ’t is you will be hung.”
“We lose time over this badinage, Sir William,” complained the commissary, angrily. “The fellow is a spy without question.”
“He is not,” cried Mrs. Loring; “and he shall not even be a prisoner. You will not hold him, Sir William, when he came but to see the maid he loves?”