This trouble over, another began, which put me in a towering rage. A gaudy young gentleman bumped into me and, though it was clearly his fault, I apologized and passed on, leaving him hopping about on one foot and nursing the other, which I had trodden on. He swore at me worse than a boatswain at a lubber, and but for the exquisite pain I had caused him I should have gone into the matter with him. I found my linkman leaning against a post and laughing heartily. "Never you mind, sir. He'll not take the wall of you again in a hurry." "Take the wall?" I said. "Done on purpose, sir, to pick a quarrel with you. The young sparks do it for a game." Not much farther on, we met a sedan, with an elegant young lady in it, and an elegant gentleman walking along by her close up to the chains, she being in the roadway. There was ample room for me to pass between him and the wall, which was also the courteous thing to do; but as soon as my linkman had passed him, he shot clean in my way. I gave him all the wall he wanted and more, bumping his head against it till he apologized humbly through his rattling teeth. The lady shrieked viciously at me, and one of her chairmen, my back being turned, pulled out his pole and came to attack me. My man, however, very dexterously pushed the link in his face as he was straddling over the chains, and he dropped the pole and spat and spluttered tremendously. I stepped across to the lady and apologized for detaining her, and then my man and I went on, easy victors. Arrived at Queen Anne's Gate, another surprise awaited me. Master Freake's windows were ablaze with light, and the door was being held open by a man in handsome livery to admit an exquisite gentleman and a more exquisite lady who had just arrived there in chairs. I gave my man his guinea, and after dousing his link in a great iron extinguisher at the side of the door, he sped happily away. After watching the arrival of three or four more chairs and one carriage, I summoned up all my resolution and gave a feeble rat-tat with the massive iron lion's-head which served as knocker. The man in livery opened to me, and I was inside before he could observe that I was an intruder. True, I was in my best clothes--my Sunday clothes, as I should have called them at home--and they were none so bad; but they had been made in Boston, where fashions ranged on the sober side. Here I looked like a sparrow in a flight of bull-finches. "Can I see Master Freake?" said I. "No," said he, with uncompromising promptness. "Is he at home?" "No," he retorted. "This is his house, I think?" "It is," he assented. "Then I suppose all these people are coming to see you--and cook," said I gravely.