Their way lay now towards Knightsbridge by a fair, broad road through the fields, and between some isolated houses and villas that were dotted about; and as by this time the moon was well up, everything they passed could be seen distinctly. Of people, they met or passed scarcely any; the road that, an hour or so before, had been covered with revellers of all degrees wending their way back from Ranelagh to the suburbs of Chelsea, Kensington, and Knightsbridge, or to what had, even in those days, been already called "The Great City," was now, with midnight at hand, as deserted as a country lane. Yet one sign they did see of the debaucheries that took place in Ranelagh as well as in the Spring Gardens; a sign of the drunkenness and depravities that prevailed terribly in those days among almost all classes. Lying at the side of the road, where, doubtless, they had fallen together as they reeled away from the night's orgie, they perceived two young men and a young woman--masked, and presenting a weird appearance as they lay on their backs, their flushed faces turned up to the moon, yet with the upper part hidden by the black vizard. It was easy to perceive that all had fallen together and been afterwards unable to rise--as they lay side by side they were still arm in arm, and, doubtless, the first who had fallen had dragged the others after him. The two young men seemed from their apparel to be of a respectable class, perhaps clerks or scriveners, their clothes being of good cloth, though not at all belaced; as for their companion, the bacchante by their sides, she might have been anything from shopgirl or boothdancer down to demirep. "Now," said Douglas, "here is our chance for disguise. These fellows have good enough coats and hats--see, too, they sport the black cockade. Well, 'twill not hurt them to sell us some apparel." Wherewith he proceeded to lift the nearest sot up and relieve him of his coat, waistcoat, and hat. Apparently the fellow thought he was being put to bed by some one, as he muttered indistinctly, "Hang coat over chair--shan't wear it 'gain till Sunday"--but as Douglas slipped a couple of guineas into his breeches pocket he went to sleep peacefully enough once more. As for the other young man, he never stirred at all while Bertie removed his garments, nor when he put into his pocket a similar sum of two guineas, and also his copper-cased watch, which had slipped from out his fob. "They are somewhat tight and pinching," remarked Douglas as he and his friend donned their new disguise, "even though we are now as lean as rats after our Scotch campaign."