"This is all right—just as it should be," said the Colonel. "Captain Smith, you'll plead poor Chatterton's cause with the offended lady."
"Perhaps the culprit had better be his own advocate—he will find the court very favourably disposed; and as the judge is herself at the Waterloo hotel"—
"Marion here!" exclaimed Chatterton; "good heavens, what an atrocious ass I have been!"
"She is indeed," replied the Captain. "I knew she would be anxious to receive her brother Charles on his landing, and as I had wormed out from her the circumstances of this lover's quarrel"—
"Amantium ira amoris redintegratio est—as a body may say," interposed Major M'Toddy.
"And was determined to enquire into it, I thought that the pretence of welcoming Captain Hope would allay any suspicion of my intention; and so, with her good mother's permission, I brought her down, leaving my wife in Henley Street"—
"Where she didn't long remain," said no other than Captain Charles Hope, himself leading in Mrs Smith, the mysterious travelling acquaintance of Mr Clam.
"Do you forgive me," she said to her husband, "for coming down without your knowledge?"
"I suppose I must," said Captain Smith, laughing, "on condition that you pardon me for the same offence?"
"And noo, then," said Major M'Toddy, "I propose that we all, together and singly, conjunctim ac separatim—as a body may say—go down instanter to the Waterloo Hotel. We can arrange every thing there better than here, for we must hear the other side—audi alteram partem, as a body may say."