Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/273

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
265

far for a kiss when he was in the room, I warrant, however coarse her duds might be; and lauk! but the Captain was a sensible man, and liked a cow as well as a calf."

"So, so! on the road are they?" cried Clifford musingly, and without heeding the insinuated attack on his decorum. "But answer me, what is the plan?—Be quick."

"Why," replied the dame, "there's some swell cove of a lord gives a blow-out to-day, and the lads, dear souls! think to play the queer on some straggler."

Without uttering a word, Clifford darted from the house and was remounted before the old lady had time to recover her surprise.

"If you want to see them," cried she, as he put spurs to his horse, "they ordered me to have supper ready at——" The horse's hoofs drowned the last words of the dame, and carefully rebolting the door, and muttering an invidious comparison between Captain Clifford and Captain Gloak, the good landlady returned to those culinary opera-