I pondered on this hard problem for a full minute. Cynthia's gloomy views were hopelessly right. We were indeed a pair of beggars, homeless and destitute. But we could not walk about all through that wretched wet night on the open road. We must find some asylum for our weariness, if only a cow-hovel as it had been formerly. This night, however, put us in no mind for that kind of thing. We longed for the luxuries of a bright fire at which to dry our clothes, a warm supper at which to defeat the dismal weather, and a snug bed afterwards. But how could we make sevenpence go so far? Beat my brains as I might, I could find no solution to this hard problem. Yet we both yearned for these comforts so keenly, that at last we came to the resolve that we would obtain them by hook or by crook, if not by fair means, by those more desperate, and be hanged to the consequences! Accordingly, when we arrived at the first house in the place, I thrilled Cynthia by boldly knocking on the door, and thrilled her further by more boldly asking the title of the principal inn. As it bore the promising name of the Angel, and was less than half-a-mile along that very road, and was said to be a remarkably good inn, we were encouraged to push on in search of it. "Oh, Jack," says poor Cynthia nervously, "whatever will the consequences be? It must be quite a public place; the landlord will certainly ask to see our money before he serves us, such a poor vagrant pair must we seem in the eyes of everybody; some of those horrid Bow Street runners may be there too, or possibly my father. And if we take that for which we are unable to pay, we may get sent to prison, or----" "Put in the stocks," says I. Cynthia shuddered, and then laughed a little. "I don't think," says she, "we shall ever fear that indignity again. At least we came triumphantly through that ordeal." "Merely by being bold," says I, "and the exercise of our sense of mirth. And that is what will be demanded of us in the adventure that is before us. Let us play our parts as bravely here, and I am convinced that we shall come out of it just as successfully. Let us be bold and take our courage in our hands, and I'll answer for it we'll get a supper, a fire, a bottle, and a bed, and no questions asked. But only a sufficient hardihood can do it, do you understand? We must not bear ourselves as a pair of beggars at this inn, but rather as persons of consideration and great place. You must be daughter to the duke, my prettiness, and I will be a devil of a peer." "That is all very fine, Jack," says Cynthia, who on occasion could be very shrewd, "but how are we to reconcile our lost and destitute state with our exalted degree? "A most happy idea," says I, suddenly seized with the same. "I have it exactly. We must be a pair of travellers who have been set on by a highwayman, turned out of our carriage, and robbed of all our money and valuables."