The governor, who did not enter this gloomy fortress without fear
and trembling, found his pupil in a dismal apartment, void of all
furniture but a stool and a truckle-bed. The moment he was admitted,
he perceived the youth whistling with great unconcern, and working
with his pencil at the bare wall, on which he had delineated a
ludicrous figure labelled with the name of the nobleman, whom he had
affronted, and an English mastiff with his leg lifted up, in the
attitude of making water in his shoe. He had been even so presumptuous
as to explain the device with satirical inscriptions in the French
language, which, when Jolter perused, his hair stood on end with
affright. The very turnkey was confounded and overawed by the boldness
of his behaviour, which he had never seen matched by any inhabitant
of that place; and actually joined his friend in persuading him to
submit to the easy demand of the minister. But our hero, far from
embracing the counsel of this advocate, handed him to the door with
great ceremony, and dismissed him with a kick on the breeches; and,
to all the supplications, and even tears of Jolter, made no other
reply than that he would stoop to no condescension, because he had
committed no crime, but would leave his case to the cognisance and
exertion of the British court, whose duty it was to see justice done
to its own subjects: he desired, however, that Pallet, who was
confined in another place, might avail himself of his own disposition,
which was sufficiently pliable; but when the governor desired to
see his fellow-prisoner, the turnkey gave him to understand that
he had received no orders relating to the lady, and therefore could
not admit him into her apartment; though he was complaisant enough
to tell him that she seemed very much mortified at her confinement,
and at certain times behaved as if her brain was not a little
disordered.
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