The landlord was in a great taking when he heard my voice at his back. Having listened to his apologies that were no less fervent than his previous abuse, and having taken them in very good part, I demanded to know the amount of the score, and smiled at Mr. Jeremy while I did so, in an intimate way, for I judged a display of some little familiarity towards him was the most calculated to propitiate that gentleman. Eightpence was the score, a sum fortunately well within our truly modest means. But judge of our desperate chagrin an instant later when Cynthia, the custodian of our poor fortune, having felt in all her pockets, declared that the purse which contained it was not to be found. Search as she might, there was never a trace of it. We stared at one another blankly, and then at the landlord, and then at Mr. Jeremy. It was this last good gentleman who saved the situation for us, since he burst out a-laughing. Thereon I broke into a roar; and presently Cynthia, Willum, and the landlord were roaring too. And could anything have been more ludicrous than two persons leaving an inn without paying the reckoning, and wending all the way back again for the purpose of rectifying the error with devil a penny between them with which to do so! Under cover of the commotion that this discovery provoked, I racked my wits to find an excuse for our behaviour. "You may laugh, gentlemen," says I, with a sudden gravity, "but it is no laughing matter for us, let me tell you. My wife's pocket hath been picked, and how we are to get back home with not so much as a penny between us, strike me dead if I can say!" "Why, 'tis a case for Mr. Jeremy's genius," says Cynthia, smiling at that flattered person in a most bewitching manner. "He must devise us a means out of his infinite wit." "Peace, woman," says I, angrily. "Is it not enough then that you should lose all our travelling money and bring us into disgrace with our honest host, whom we are unable to requite for his hospitality, but you must lose the control of that unlucky tongue too, and let it grow so familiar with the name and attainments of one of the foremost persons of his age that it brings us into disrepute with him also?" I spoke with my tongue in my cheek to be sure, and Cynthia more than once had to bite her lips to restrain her merriment. But Mr. Jeremy nodded his head delightedly all the time, and purred with satisfaction. "No offence, no offence," says that gentleman. "Don't mind me, my pretty one. But since you ask my opinion as to 'ow you shall get back home again, I think after carefully considering all the circumstances, the only means I can discover is 'Shanks's mare.'" "Ha ha! he he!" we all laughed at this desperate piece of wit.