“The Honourable Edward Stafford, your master,” said Alexander, firmly.
“Mon Dieu! ha! ha! ha!” said the little Gaul, and attempted to thrust the door in his face; but Alexander, perceiving his intention, thrust forth his hand with a force that made the door fly back upon its hinges, and caused the huge brass knocker to sound an unusual and unceremonious alarm through the house, and at the same time drove the little powdered piece of foreign impertinence upon his back at the further end of the lobby.
“Moorder! moorder!” shouted the little valet, sprawling upon his back, and kicking with his feet upon the floor, till kitchen-maids, housekeeper, cook, butler, and all the personages in the Honourable Edward Stafford’s establishment, came rushing around him, holding up their hands.
“O sacra Marie!” cried the little valet, as they raised him to his feet; “de tief! de savage! vould commit von moorder!—Ma foi! it be de miracle I be alive!” and, gathering himself upon his hands and knees, he muttered, eyeing him askance—“Je voudrais qu’il s’en allat!”
The Honourable Edward Stafford rushed also to the lobby, arrayed in a dressing-gown, having sprung from the hands of a hair-dresser, who was performing a piece of work upon his ringlets for which he did not consider the valet qualified; and, to give additional effect to the figure which he now made in the midst of his servants, he appeared with the one side of his head in curls, while a comb was left sticking in the other.
“What! in the name of the Tower of Babel!” cried, or rather squeaked, Mr Stafford—“what is the meaning of this?”
Alexander, whose natural humour returned at the risible scene before him, approached smiling; and, extending his hand, said—“What! don’t you know me, Ned?”
“Back! back!” exclaimed the honourable and gentle Edward Stafford; “the effluvia of thy garments is poison to my nostrils! Faugh!—know thee—why thou art a moving tar barrel!” There was some cause for this last remark; for Alexander had slept with the common seamen during his passage to London, and his clothes yet bore witness to the pitchy fragrance of his bed-chamber. But Mr Stafford calling for an opera-glass, raised it to his eye, and, surveying him for a few moments, inquired—“Why, who are you? Your face—I have seen it somewhere! Who are you?”
“Have you forgot Cambridge and Alexander Hamilton?” said the other.
“Sandy Hamilton!” exclaimed Stafford, rising an inch, as if in surprise—“we always called you Sandy. But, come, let me hear this lark—’tis a prime one, I will vow, from your appearance; and yet you were no lad for life either,” he added, as he coldly held out his forefinger, and turned to conduct him into an apartment.