'Pardon me,' he interrupted: 'I make no such claim. I only see
the nobility and gentry in the way of business. I am quite a plain
person.'
'For the Lord's sake,' I exclaimed, 'set my mind at rest upon one
point. In the name of mystery, who and what are you?'
'I have no cause to be ashamed of my name, sir,' said he, 'nor yet
my trade. I am Thomas Dudgeon, at your service, clerk to Mr.
Daniel Romaine, solicitor of London; High Holborn is our address,
sir.'
It was only by the ecstasy of the relief that I knew how horribly I
had been frightened. I flung my stick on the road.
'Romaine?' I cried. 'Daniel Romaine? An old hunks with a red face
and a big head, and got up like a Quaker? My dear friend, to my
arms!'
'Keep back, I say!' said Dudgeon weakly.
I would not listen to him. With the end of my own alarm, I felt as
if I must infallibly be at the end of all dangers likewise; as if
the pistol that he held in one hand were no more to be feared than
the valise that he carried with the other, and now put up like a
barrier against my advance.
'Keep back, or I declare I will fire,' he was crying. 'Have a
care, for God's sake! My pistol--'
He might scream as be pleased. Willy nilly, I folded him to my
breast, I pressed him there, I kissed his ugly mug as it had never
been kissed before and would never be kissed again; and in the
doing so knocked his wig awry and his hat off.
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