It was three hours past midnight when the party for Lyndon House went away.  Little Bullingdon had long since been asleep in one of Lady Charlemont’s china closets.  Mr. Runt was exceedingly husky in talk, and unsteady in gait.  A young lady of the present day would be alarmed to see a gentleman in such a condition; but it was a common sight in those jolly old times, when a gentleman was thought a milksop unless he was occasionally tipsy.  I saw Miss Kiljoy to her carriage, with several other gentlemen:  and, peering through the crowd of ragged linkboys, drivers, beggars, drunken men and women, who used invariably to wait round great men’s doors when festivities were going on, saw the carriage drive off, with a hurrah from the mob; then came back presently to the supper-room, where I talked German, favoured the three or four topers still there with a High-Dutch chorus, and attacked the dishes and wine with great resolution.

‘How can you drink aisy with that big nose on?’ said one gentleman.

‘Go an be hangt!’ said I, in the true accent, applying myself again to the wine; with which the others laughed, and I pursued my supper in silence.

There was a gentleman present who had seen the Lyndon party go off, with whom I had made a bet, which I lost; and the next morning I called upon him and paid it him.  All which particulars the reader will be surprised at hearing enumerated; but the fact is, that it was not I who went back to the party, but my late German valet, who was of my size, and, dressed in my mask, could perfectly pass for me.  We changed clothes in a hackney-coach that stood near Lady Lyndon’s chariot, and driving after it, speedily overtook it.

The fated vehicle which bore the lovely object of Ulick Brady’s affections had not advanced very far, when, in the midst of a deep rut in the road, it came suddenly to with a jolt; the footman, springing off the back, cried ‘Stop!’ to the coachman, warning him that a wheel was off, and that it would be dangerous to proceed with only three.  Wheel-caps had not been invented in those days, as they have since been by the ingenious builders of Long Acre.  And how the linch-pin of the wheel had come out I do not pretend to say; but it possibly may have been extracted by some rogues among the crowd before Lord Charlemont’s gate.

Miss Kiljoy thrust her head out of the window, screaming as ladies do; Mr. Runt the chaplain woke up from his boozy slumbers; and little Bullingdon, starting up and drawing his little sword, said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Miss Amelia:  if it’s footpads, I am armed.’  The young rascal had the spirit of a lion, that’s the truth; as I must acknowledge, in spite of all my after quarrels with him.