“Don’t take on so,” said he. “Young folk will be giddy. Bless your heart--there’s none of our gentlemen that arn’t wildish now and then. I wish we could get you something to drink; but the canteen is closed. Would you like to go home? I dare not spare a man; but I’ll send for Mr. O’Halloran’s servant, and pass him through the gate.” The quaker thanked him, but declined assistance; asked for and received a draught of water “cold from the pump,” the sentry unclosed the wicket, and Samuel Pryme returned to his father’s house, “a sadder, if not a wiser man,” than when he quitted it the preceding evening. The clock struck five. Peter Bradley was snoring on his guard-bed, and Mr. French taking his ease at an unpretending hostelrie in Smock Alley, not generally known in the fashionable world, but, patronized by the pleasant part of the community, and ycleped “The Hole in the Wall.” I felt as much at home in my dormitory as if I had been legal proprietor of it, while he, unhappy youth! reconnoitred the house from the outside, with all the suspicion of a man who meditates a burglary on the premises. In their respective chambers, Mrs. Pryme and her handmaiden had owned the influence of the drowsy god, and Rachel slumbered with as safe a conscience as if she had never kissed a fusileer. There is an old saw, gentle reader, which insinuates that it is prudent occasionally to allow “sleeping dogs to lie.” We’ll adopt it “for the nonce”--inquire what had befallen that _alter ego_, my foster-brother, and, with your gracious permission, follow through the next chapter, the fortunes of Mark Antony O’Toole. CHAPTER IX. THE COCK AND PUNCH-BOWL “_Rosalind_. Here’s a young maid with travel much oppress’d, And faints for succour.” “_Corin._ I pity her, And wish for her sake, more than for my own, My fortunes were more able to relieve her.” As You Like It.