From thence they proceeded to Amiens, where they dined,
and were pestered by begging friars; and the roads being deep, it
was eleven o'clock at night before they reached Chantilly, where they
found supper already dressed, in consequence of having despatched
the valet-de-chambre before them on horseback.
The constitution of Hornbeck being very much impaired by a life of
irregularity, he found himself so fatigued with his day's journey,
which amounted to upwards of a hundred miles, that when he sat
down at table, he could scarce sit upright; and in less than three
minutes began to nod in his chair. Peregrine, who had foreseen and
provided for this occasion, advised him to exhilarate his spirits
with a glass of wine; and the proposal being embraced, tipped his
valet-de-chambre the wink, who, according to the instructions he
had received, qualified the Burgundy with thirty drops of laudanum,
which this unfortunate husband swallowed in one glass. The dose,
cooperating with his former drowsiness, lulled him so fast to sleep,
as it were instantaneously, that it was found necessary to convey
him to his own chamber, where his footman undressed and put him to
bed: nor was Jolter (naturally of a sluggish disposition) able to
resist his propensity to sleep, without suffering divers dreadful
yawns, which encouraged his pupil to administer the same dose to
him, which had operated so successfully upon the other Argus.
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