While this happy gallant was employed in disengaging himself from the deshabille in which he had entered, the Capuchin, suspecting that Peregrine would make another attempt upon his charge, had crept silently to the apartment in order to reconnoitre, lest the adventure should be achieved without his knowledge; a circumstance that would deprive him of the profits he might expect from his privity and concurrence. Finding the door unlatched, his suspicion was confirmed, and he made no scruple of creeping into the chamber on all four; so that the painter, having stripped himself to the shirt, in groping about for his dulcinea's bed, chanced to lay his hand upon the shaven crown of the father's head, which, by a circular motion, the priest began to turn round in his grasp, like a ball in a socket, to the surprise and consternation of poor Pallet, who, neither having penetration to comprehend the case, nor resolution to withdraw his fingers from this strange object of his touch, stood sweating in the dark, and venting ejaculations with great devotion. The friar, tired with this exercise, and the painful posture in which he stooped, raised himself gradually upon his feet, heaving up at the same time the hand of the painter, whose terror and amazement increased to such a degree at this unaccountable elevation, that his faculties began to fail; and his palm, in the confusion of his fright, sliding over the priest's forehead, one of his fingers happened to slip into his mouth, and was immediately secured between the Capuchin's teeth with as firm a fixture as if it had been screwed in a blacksmith's vice.