Matters had come to a pretty pickle indeed.  I was openly warned at Brooks’s and elsewhere to beware of the duke, who was said upon various authority to be sulking in Hanover Square, his rage all the more dangerous because it was smouldering.  I saw Dolly only casually before the party to Vauxhall.  Needless to say, she flew in the face of Dr. James’s authority, and went everywhere.  She was at Lady Bunbury’s drum, whither I had gone in another fruitless chase after Mr. Marmaduke.  Dr. Warner’s verse was the laughter of the company.  And, greatly to my annoyance,—­in the circumstances,—­I was made a hero of, and showered with three times as many invitations as I could accept.

The whole story got abroad, even to the awakening of the duke in Covent Garden.  And that clownish Mr. Foote, of the Haymarket, had added some lines to a silly popular song entitled ‘The Sights o’ Lunnun’, with which I was hailed at Mrs. Betty’s fruit-stall in St. James’s Street.  Here is one of the verses: 

       “In Maryland, he hunts the Fox
        From dewy Morn till Day grows dim;
        At Home he finds a Paradox,
        From Noon till Dawn the Fox hunts him.”

Charles Fox laughed when he heard it.  But he was serious when he came to speak of Chartersea, and bade me look out for assassination.  I had Banks follow me abroad at night with a brace of pistols under his coat, albeit I feared nothing save that I should not have an opportunity to meet the duke in a fair fight.  And I resolved at all hazards to run Mr. Marmaduke down with despatch, if I had to waylay him.

Mr. Storer, who was forever giving parties, was responsible for this one at Vauxhall.  We went in three coaches, and besides Dorothy and Mr. Marmaduke, the company included Lord and Lady Carlisle, Sir Charles and Lady Sarah Bunbury, Lady Ossory and Lady Julia Howard, two Miss Stanleys and Miss Poole, and Comyn, and Hare, and Price, and Fitzpatrick, the latter feeling very glum over a sum he had dropped that afternoon to Lord Harrington.  Fox had been called to St. Stephen’s on more printer’s business.

Dolly was in glowing pink, as I loved best to see her, and looked divine.  Comyn and I were in Mr. Manners’s coach.  The evening was fine and warm, and my lady in very lively spirits.  As we rattled over Westminster Bridge, the music of the Vauxhall band came “throbbing through the still night,” and the sky was bright with the reflection of the lights.  It was the fashion with the quality to go late; and so eleven o’clock had struck before we had pulled up between Vauxhall stairs, crowded with watermen and rough mudlarks, and the very ordinary-looking house which forms the entrance of the great garden.  Leaving the servants outside, single-file we trailed through the dark passage guarded by the wicketgate.

“Prepare to be ravished, Richard,” said my lady, with fine sarcasm.

“You were yourself born in the colonies, miss,” I retorted.  “I confess to a thrill, and will not pretend that I have seen such sights often enough to be sated.”