“And your honours please,” said he, “he has sold lamb to half the Tory gentry in Annapolis.”

“A lie!” cried Chipchase; “a lie, as God hears me!”

Now Captain Clapsaddle was one who carried his loves and his hatreds to the grave, and he had never liked Weld since the day, six years gone by, he had sent me into the Ship tavern.  And when Weld heard the captain’s voice he slunk away without a word.

“Have a care, Master Weld,” says he, in a quiet tone that boded no good; “there is more evidence against you than you will like.”

Master Chipchase, after being frightened almost out of his senses, was pardoned this once by Captain Daniel’s influence.  We went thence to Mr. Hildreth’s shop; he was suspected of having got tea out of a South River snow; then to Mr. Jackson’s; and so on.  ’Twas after two when we got back to the Coffee House, and sat down to as good a dinner as Mr. Claude could prepare.  “And now,” cried Colonel Lloyd, “we shall have your adventures, Richard.  I would that your uncle were here to listen to them,” he added dryly.

I recited them very much as I had done the night before, and I warrant you, my dears, that they listened with more zest and eagerness than did Mr. Walpole.  But they were all shrewd men, and kept their suspicions, if they had any, to themselves.  Captain Daniel would have me omit nothing,—­my intimacy with Mr. Fox, the speech at Brooks’s Club, and the riding-match at Hyde Park.

“What say you to that, gentlemen?” he cried.  “Egad, I’ll be sworn he deserves credit,—­an arrant young spark out of the Colonies, scarce turned nineteen, defeating a duke of the realm on horseback, and preaching the gospel of ‘no taxation’ at Brooks’s Club!  Nor the favour of Sandwich or March could turn him from his principles.”

Modesty, my dears, does not permit me to picture the enthusiasm of these good gentlemen, who bore the responsibility of the colony of Maryland upon their shoulders.  They made more of me than I deserved.  In vain did I seek to explain that if a young man was but well-born, and had a full purse and a turn for high play, his principles might go hang, for all Mr. Fox cared.  Colonel Lloyd commanded that the famous rose punch-bowl be filled to the brim with Mr. Claude’s best summer brew, and they drank my health and my grandfather’s memory.  It mattered little to them that I was poor.  They vowed I should not lose by my choice.  Mr. Bordley offered me a home, and added that I should have employment enough in the days to come.  Mr. Carroll pressed me likewise.  And big-hearted Colonel Lloyd desired to send me to King’s College, as was my grandfather’s wish, where Will Fotheringay and my cousin Philip had been for a term.  I might make a barrister of myself.  Mr. Swain alone was silent and thoughtful, but I did not for an instant doubt that he would have done as much for me.