Lewis Arundel; Or, The Railroad Of LifeSmedley, Frank E. (Frank Edward)
General
Lewis Arundel; Or, The Railroad Of Life
Smedley, Frank E. (Frank Edward)
English fiction -- 19th century
How, as they emerged into the street, a party of the police arrived and
caused more confusion and more broken heads; and how Grande-ville and
the Irishman on the one hand, and sundry Chartists, with Lewis’s late
antagonist among them, on the other, were jointly and severally taken
into custody and marched to the station-house, where they spent the
night; and how Leicester contrived just in the nick of time to catch an
intelligent cab, into which he, Lewis, Frere, and the fainting victim
with the pallid physiognomy compressed themselves, and were conveyed
rapidly from the scene of action, it boots not to relate: suffice it to
say that a certain barrel of oysters, flanked by a detachment of
pint bottles of stout, which had taken up their position on Frere’s
dining-table during the absence of its master, sustained an attack about
half-past eleven o’clock that night which proved that the mode in which
their assailants had passed the evening had in no way impaired their
respective appetites.
CHAPTER VI.--IN WHICH LEWIS ARUNDEL SKETCHES A COW, AND THE AUTHOR DRAWS
A YOUNG LADY.
It was about noon on the day following the events narrated in the last
chapter. Frere had departed to his office at the scientific institution
some two hours since, and Lewis and Faust were looking out of the
window, when a well-appointed cab dashed round the corner of a cross
street, and a pair of lavender-coloured kid-gloves drew up a splendid
bay horse, who arched his proud neck and champed the bit, impatient of
delay, till a young male child in livery coat and top-boots rolled off
the back of the vehicle and stationed itself before the animal’s nose,
which act of self-devotion appeared to mesmerise him into tranquillity,
and afforded the occupant of the cab time to spring out and knock at
Frere’s door. Five minutes more saw Leicester and Lewis seated side by
side and driving rapidly in the direction of Park Crescent.
“I don’t know how you feel this morning, Arundel,” began Leicester; “but
positively when I first woke I could scarcely move. I’m black and blue
all over, I believe.”
“I must confess to being rather stiff,” was the reply, “and my left hand
is unproducible. I cut my knuckles against the nose of that tall fellow
when I knocked him down, and shall be forced to wear a glove till it
heals.”
“You did that uncommonly well,” returned Leicester; “the man was as
strong as Hercules, and vicious into the bargain. He evidently had heard
what you said about a black eye, and meant mischief. I was coming to
help you when you finished him off.”
“It would have been most provoking to have been disfigured just at this
time,” rejoined Lewis. “One could not very well go to propose oneself as
a mentor for youth with a black eye obtained in something nearly akin to
a street row.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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