I had come to the guess as soon as he, but I dared not give it voice, nor anything but ridicule.  And so we came to the hotel, the red of departing day fading in the sky above the ragged house-line in St. James’s Street.

It was a very different reception we got than when we had first come there.  You, my dears, who live in this Republic can have no notion of the stir and bustle caused by the arrival of Horace Walpole’s carriage at a fashionable hotel, at a time when every innkeeper was versed in the arms of every family of note in the three kingdoms.  Our friend the chamberlain was now humility itself, and fairly ran in his eagerness to anticipate Comyn’s demands.  It was “Yes, my Lord,” and “To be sure, your Lordship,” every other second, and he seized the first occasion to make me an elaborate apology for his former cold conduct, assuring me that had our honours been pleased to divulge the fact that we had friends in London, such friends as my Lord Comyn and Mr. Walpole, whose great father he had once had the distinction to serve as linkman, all would have been well.  And he was desiring me particularly to comprehend that he had been acting under most disagreeable orders when he sent for the bailiff, before I cut him short.

We were soon comfortably installed in our old rooms; Comyn had sent post-haste for Davenport, who chanced to be his own tailor, and for the whole army of auxiliaries indispensable to a gentleman’s make-up; and Mr. Dix was notified that his Lordship would receive him at eleven on the following morning, in my rooms.  I remembered the faithful Banks with a twinge of gratitude, and sent for him.  And John Paul and I, having been duly installed in the clothes made for us, all three of us sat down merrily to such a supper as only the cook of the Star and Garter, who had been chef to the Comte de Maurepas, could prepare.  Then I begged Comyn to relate the story of our rescue, which I burned to hear.

“Why, Richard,” said he, filling his glass, “had you run afoul any other man in London, save perchance Selwyn, you’d have been drinking the bailiff’s triple-diluted for a month to come.  I never knew such a brace of fools as he and Horry for getting hold of strange yarns and making them stranger; the wonder was that Horry told this as straight as he did.  He has written it to all his friends on the Continent, and had he not been in dock with the gout ever since he reached town, he would have told it at the opera, and at a dozen routs and suppers.  Beg pardon, captain,” said he, turning to John Paul, “but I think ’twas your peacock coat that saved you both, for it caught Horry’s eye through the window, as you got out of the chaise, and down he came as fast as he could hobble.

“Horry had a little dinner to-day in Arlington Street, where he lives, and Miss Dorothy was there.  I have told you, Richard, there has been no sensation in town equal to that of your Maryland beauty, since Lady Sarah Lennox.  You may have some notion of the old beau Horry can be when he tries, and he is over-fond of Miss Dolly—­she puts him in mind of some canvas or other of Sir Peter’s.  He vowed he had been saving this piece de resistance, as he was pleased to call it, expressly for her, since it had to do somewhat with Maryland.  ’What d’ye think I met at Windsor, Miss Manners?’ he cries, before we had begun the second course.