"I'll back a wench against her dam for a thousand guineas if she's set her heart on a man. Odds bodikins, if she comes not you won't lose. _I_ shall and it'll be the devil's own bad luck. No have, no pay. D'ye see that my young squire?" Dorrimore could offer no contradiction. All that remained to be discussed was what would follow supposing fortune favoured them, and they subsided into a whispered conference which was after a time interrupted by some of Dorrimore's boon companions, who carried him off to a wild revelry in the Covent Garden taverns with the last hour at the "Finish," the tavern of ill-repute on the south side of the market. Rofflash would have accompanied the party but that a hand was laid on his arm and a masked lady whispered:-- "One moment, captain, I want you." He turned. He recognised the speaker by the lower part of her face, the round, somewhat prominent chin, the imperious mouth with its sensual lower lip, the bold sweeping contour from the chin to the ear. "Sally Salisbury--the devil!" he ejaculated. "Not quite, but a near relative may be," rejoined Sally with a sarcastic laugh. "Who's the spark you're so thick with?" "The fool who's mad to get hold of the prettiest wench in town--Lavinia Fenton." "That little trollop! I hate the creature. But there's no need to talk of her. What of the man I paid you to track? Have you found him?" Rofflash watched her face, what he could see of it, for she had not unmasked, and noted the slight quiver of the lips and the rise and fall of her bosom. "Faith mistress," he chuckled with a drunken leer, "if you're not as crazy over the beggarly scribbler as my young gallant is over the Fenton girl who lives in the Old Bailey--at a coffee house, forsooth! Why, to see the pother you're in one would think the hussy had put your nose out of joint. Perhaps she has. She's fetching enough." Sally seized the captain's arm with a vigorous grip that showed the intensity of her feelings. He winced and muttered an oath. "S'life," he burst out, "save your nails for the girl who's cut you out with the scribbler." "She? You lie. What has he to do with the minx?" "As much as he need have to start with. Didn't he help her to escape from Dorrimore's arms when the fool thought he had her safe?" "What!" screamed Sally, "Was _he_ the man?" "Aye. I've not yet plucked the crow between him and me for that, but by gad, I mean to pluck it." "It won't be by fair means then. You're too much of a coward. See here, you devil. Lance Vane's mine, and if you dare so much as to lay a finger on him you will know what _I_ can do. There's but one road for gentry of your profession--the road to Tyburn--and you'll take it if you cross me. It'll be as easy as _that_." She dealt the braggart a blow across the nose and eyes with her closed fan. The sticks snapped and in a white heat of passion she broke them again and again and flung the fragments in the discomfited captain's face.