The unfortunate Mr. Schnackenberger considered the case most ruefully and in awful perturbation. He perspired exceedingly. However, at length--'Come, I don't care,' said he, 'I know what I'll do:' and then sitting down, he drew up a paper, which he presented to Mr. Attorney; at the same time, explaining to him that, rather than be exposed in a court of justice as a supposed lover of Mrs. Sweetbread's, he was content to pay the monstrous charges of her bill without applying to a magistrate for his revision: but upon this condition only, that Mrs. Sweetbread should for herself, heirs, and assigns, execute a general release with regard to Mr. Jeremiah Schnackenberger's body, according to the form here drawn up by himself, and should engage on no pretence whatever to set up any claim to him in times to come. The attorney took his leave for the purpose of laying this _release_ before his client: but the landlord of the Double-barrelled Gun, to whom in confidence Mr. Jeremiah disclosed his perilous situation, shook his head, and said, that if the other party signed the release on the conditions offered, it would be fortunate: as in that case, Mr. Schnackenberger would come off on much easier terms than twenty-three other gentlemen had done, who had all turned into the Golden Sow on different occasions, but not one of whom had ever got clear of the Golden Sow without an expensive contest at law. 'God bless my soul!' said Mr. Schnackenberger, who now 'funked'[24] enormously; 'if that's the case, she might well have so much spare room to offer me: twenty-three gentlemen! God bless my soul!' [24] If any reader should happen not to be acquainted with this word, which, however, is fine old English, and classical at Eton, &c.--the nearest synonym which I remember at this moment is _Expavesco_. At this instant, a servant brought back the shoes and clothes of Mr. Schnackenberger's own manufacture, which had been pulled off and left at the hotel of the princess. The student gave up the pumps and the borrowed coat to the astonished servant, with an assurance that he would wait on her Highness and make his personal excuses to her, on account of 'a little accident' which had that morning befallen the coat. He then dispatched his own coat to a quarter where something or other might be done to fit it for this sublunary world. CHAPTER XIV. IN WHAT WAY MR. JEREMIAH SUPPLIES THE WANT OF HIS COAT.