“Werry good,” murmurs Bloksey, turning on his slip-shod heel. “We’ll just go down to the round house, and if it turns out as Your Lordship gets h’admission to the Tower free, you needn’t be too much surprised. We doesn’t mind a-tellin’ ’ow we saw you a-prickin’ Sir Percy de Bohun last night! and a-weightin’ of his mangled corp, and a-throwin’ of the same h’into the river at the old Dove Pier!—Oh, no! we doesn’t!” This at the door-sill. “What! what! you knaves! Here, come back! Come back, I say!” shrieks the terrified little gentleman, seizing a shoulder of each and forcing them into seats. After which simple application of primary methods, Mr. Bloksey and his friend find no difficulties whatever in the way of wresting from their patron another hundred pounds, with which they make off, again and again rehearsing to him how great risks they had run in decently interring the body of his hated rival. Once rid of them, Sir Robin rose, stretched himself, and yawned. ’Twas an abject soul, one of those creatures born of a good and honest stock on either side, which sometimes cumber the earth as if in ribald jest against the accepted laws of birth and breeding. With no misgiving, save that of a possible detection, Sir Robin, now that this even had been disposed of at an expense of a hundred guineas, felt nothing if not jubilant, and on the morrow proceeded to order him a suit of satins in crimson, a hat of the latest fashion, ruffles, cravats, silk hose, a muff, and a lot of other fallals at Monsieur Jabot’s in Holborn. For the Baronet, freed, as he fancied, of his enemy, and feeling positive that Lady Peggy would soon, out of the overflow of her vast affection for him, contrive a message through her obliging Mr. Incognito, desired to be equipped in the latest mode for that summons to his Lady’s presence, which he believed must ultimately, and perhaps presently, arrive. It is true, he expected that his entrance into the gay world of fashion, which, he promised himself by way of introduction, should be at Vauxhall, might be a bit hampered by the accounts he must hear of the sudden disappearance of Sir Percy de Bohun, but this seemed a trifle in the path of a gentleman for whose sake Lady Peggy Burgoyne had come up to town, remained invisible, employed an Incognito as Mercury, and of whose name, albeit falsely, the prints had made most marvelous mention. Now, Sir Robin had not seen the tenth part of these last. No, not any of ’em, in truth, save the one he had shown to Her Ladyship the evening they had encountered each other at the Dove Pier. To be entirely candid, Sir Robin was an indifferent scholar; write he could not; to read was a plague which he willingly deputed, when it was necessary, to his former instructor—that patient, worthy man, the Vicar of Friskingdean, incumbent of the living next Robinswold.