I
must first get together the nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine chestsfull
of insufferable rubbish, that I have spent the last thirty years
collecting--and may very well spend the next thirty hours a-packing
of." And what should we have said to that?'
'By way of repartee?' I asked. 'Two tall footmen and a pair of
crabtree cudgels, I suggest.'
'The Lord deliver me from the wisdom of laymen!' cried Romaine.
'Put myself in the wrong at the beginning of a lawsuit? No,
indeed! There was but one thing to do, and I did it, and burned my
last cartridge in the doing of it. I stunned him. And it gave us
three hours, by which we should make haste to profit; for if there
is one thing sure, it is that he will be up to time again to-morrow
in the morning.'
'Well,' said I, 'I own myself an idiot. Well do they say, an old
soldier, an old innocent! For I guessed nothing of all this.'
'And, guessing it, have you the same objections to leave England?'
he inquired.
'The same,' said I.
'It is indispensable,' he objected.
'And it cannot be,' I replied. 'Reason has nothing to say in the
matter; and I must not let you squander any of yours. It will be
enough to tell you this is an affair of the heart.'
'Is it even so?' quoth Romaine, nodding his head. 'And I might
have been sure of it.
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