"Then you will not enlist until you know my plan."
"Not I. It is my luck to engage in so many hairbrained scrapes of my own, that I will be led blindfold into none of your planning."
"But you must not fail me. I have set my heart on your assistance. If I had asked it of Selden, he would have stifled me with prudent advice. Nichols has not hardihood enough for any wicked act; and Marryatt is so completely bewitched with his brunette beauty in the Recolet Suburbs, that he cannot find time for any other roguery. Now for a stirring adventure you are just the lad—first, because you like it, and secondly, because you have the spirit to go through with it."
"Really you speak of your enterprize in the Hotspur vein, for like him it seems you are about to
| ——'read me matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit, As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud, On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.' |
But be it what it may, propose to me any reasonable mischief, and je suis à vous."
"It is nothing very dangerous in the performance, and the consequences must take care of themselves. I only intend to smash, and that shortly, the bow-window of our friend the barber—to scatter his perfumes about his own head, and give his next door neighbor, the glazier, a job?"
"Is that all? Bless me, how reasonable! Selden himself could not have advised a more rational and moral mode of punishing this impudent barber.—Why, Pertinax, I did not think you capable of a conception so brilliant. As to breaking the window and scattering the perfumery, 'we may do it as secure as sleep'—and for the consequences, I have nothing to say on that subject, because they come afterwards; and as Father De Rocher used to tell us, questions must be considered in their proper order: besides, all the wise ones say that fore-thought is better than after-thought. But independent of these considerations, it would be inconsistent in me, who never yet gave a thought to consequences, to do so now; and some political proser in the Spectateur, said the other day that consistency was a jewel."
"Then you enlist in the service."
"Yes, my Hotspur; 'it is a good plot as ever was laid—an excellent plot. My Lord of York commends the plot, and the general course of the action.' So here is my hand. We will take some pains to do that which will cost Timothy Crop many panes to remedy; and if we escape the pains and penalties therefor, all will be well."