The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave; among the moors...Sala, George Augustus
General
The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave; among the moors...
Sala, George Augustus
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction
However, all our nice weighings of Pros and Cons were brought to a very
abrupt standstill upon our arrival at Dover (having taken a post chariot
from Ramsgate) by the Inconceivable Behaviour of Mr. Pinchin. This young
Gentleman, utterly forgetting the claims of Duty, of Honour, of Honesty,
and of Gratitude, fairly Ran away from us, his faithful and Attached
Domestics. Without with your leave or by your leave he showed us a clean
pair of Heels. He left a very cool Letter for the Chaplain in the hands
of the master of the Inn where we put up, in which he repeated his old
uncivil Accusation, that we had eaten him out of House and Home, that we
were Leeches, Pirates, bloodsucking vampires, and the like--myself he
even did the honour to call a Designing Cockatrice--and that he had fled
from us to save the small remains of his Fortune from being Devoured,
and intended to rejoin his long-neglected Mamma. Mr. Hodge read me this
letter with a very long face, and asked me what I intended to do. I
answered that I should be better able to tell him when he had read me
the Postscript to the letter, for that I hardly fancied that Squire
Pinchin would behave in so Base and Mean a manner as to run away without
paying his Body Servant's wages. Upon this the Reverend Gentleman hems
and ha's somewhat, and gave me to understand that Mr. Pinchin had
enclosed a draft upon a Goldsmith in Change Alley in part disbursement
of his debt to him, Mr. Hodge, and that out of that--although no special
provision had been made for me by Mr. Pinchin--he thought he could spare
me a matter of Ten Pound. Now as he kept the letter very tight in his
hand, and was, withal, a Strong Man, who would have resisted any attempt
of mine to wrest it from him, I was fain to take his statement for
granted, and in a very Sulky manner agreed to accept the Ten Pound in
full of all demands, stipulating only that my Travelling charges to
London should be defrayed. This Mr. Hodge boggled at for awhile; but,
seeing me Resolute he gave way, and at last said that there was no need
for me to trouble with going to the Goldsmith in London to get the Draft
changed--"If, indeed," says he, "the unhappy young spendthrift be not
proclaimed a Bankrupt before I get this slip of paper cashed;" and that
having a small store of Gold by him, he would give me the Ten Pound
down, together with a couple of Pieces to bear my Expenses to the Town.
To this I agreed; and his Reverence handing me over the ready, we cried
Quits.
"And now, Sir," says I, "as you are no longer a Led-Parson, and I am no
longer a Lacquey, we are both, till we get Fresh Places, Gentlemen at
large, and Jack is as good as his Master, I shall be happy to crack a
bottle of Lisbon with you, and whether you pay or I pay shall be decided
by the flinging up of a Jacobus."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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