"No, indeed, sir, you may well say that! Outrageous! And my ascension announced for Friday, you know!" cried the aeronaut. "A pretty scandal! Byfield the aeronaut at the police-court! Tut-tut! Will you be able to get your rascal home, sir? Allow me to offer you my card. I am staying at Walker and Poole's Hotel, sir, where I should be pleased to see you." "The pleasure would be mutual, sir," said I, but I must say my heart was not in my words, and as I watched Mr. Byfield departing I desired nothing less than to pursue the acquaintance. One more ordeal remained for me to pass. I carried my senseless load upstairs to our lodging, and was admitted by the landlady in a tall white nightcap and with an expression singularly grim. She lighted us into the sitting-room; where, when I had seated Rowley in a chair, she dropped me a cast-iron curtsy. I smelt gunpowder on the woman. Her voice tottered with emotion. "I give ye nottice, Mr. Ducie," said she. "Dacent folks' houses...." And at that apparently temper cut off her utterance, and she took herself off without more words. I looked about me at the room, the goggling Rowley, the extinguished fire; my mind reviewed the laughable incidents of the day and night; and I laughed out loud to myself--lonely and cheerless laughter!... [_At this point the Author's_ MS. _breaks off: what follows is the work of_ MR. A.T. QUILLER-COUCH.] CHAPTER XXXI EVENTS OF THURSDAY: THE ASSEMBLY BALL But I awoke to the chill reminder of dawn, and found myself no master even of cheerless mirth. I had supped with the _Senatus Academicus_ of Cramond: so much my head informed me. It was Thursday, the day of the Assembly Ball. But the ball was fixed by the card for 8 P.M., and I had, therefore, twelve mortal hours to wear through as best I could. Doubtless it was this reflection which prompted me to leap out of bed instanter and ring for Mr. Rowley and my shaving water. Mr. Rowley, it appeared, was in no such hurry. I tugged a second time at the bell-rope. A groan answered me: and there in the doorway stood, or rather titubated, my paragon of body-servants. He was collarless, unkempt; his face a tinted map of shame and bodily disorder. His hand shook on the hot-water can, and spilled its contents into his shoes. I opened on him with a tirade, but had no heart to continue. The fault, after all, was mine: and it argued something like heroism in the lad that he had fought his nausea down and come up to time. "But not smiling," I assured him. "O, please, Mr. Anne. Go on, sir; I deserve it. But I'll never do it again, strike me sky-blue scarlet!" "In so far as that differed from your present colouring, I believe," said I, "it would be an improvement." "Never again, Mr. Anne." "Certainly not, Rowley. Even to good men this may happen once: beyond that, carelessness shades off into depravity." "Yessir." "You gave a good deal of trouble last night. I have yet to meet Mrs. McRankine."