“And I’m with you, sir,” said Ensign Bellamy. “Sure the matter touches me also, Captain, since I introduced Mr le Beaume as my guest.”
“And lent him also your father’s best cassock in which to appear?” said Captain Colquhoun. “What will our good Padra say to that, sir?”
“’Tis but his second best, sir,” pleaded the Ensign, “and Mr le Beaume passed his word to me to do it no discredit. But now, gentlemen, with your leave, we’ll set out to hunt this low fellow.”
“Go first to the peon at the door, young gentlemen,” said Mr Freyne, “and desire him to let you look at the chitts.” (These, Amelia, are the tickets of entrance, as we should say.) “By that means you’ll discover who ’twas that represented the French King.”
But the two gentlemen returning in a few minutes brought word that there was no such character mentioned on any of the chitts, neither could the peon recollect admitting such an one.
“Poh!” says my papa. “Buxies, that’s all! Did you discover whether the fellow be still in the place, gentlemen?”
“He’s not, sir,” they replied together; “but although several persons had remarked him in the ball-room, no one has seen him leave the Play-house.”
“Pray have the goodness to enquire further, gentlemen. There’s some mystery here.” I thought that he wished to be rid of the young gentlemen, for as soon as they were gone he turned to the Captain.
“What do you make of this, sir?” he asked.
“A spy, I fear. Perhaps from Chandernagore—but no, the lad le Beaume hath an honest countenance, Papist though he be.”