Going to
his own chamber, he filled a basin with cold water, and, standing
at some distance, discharged it full in the face of the gaping snorer,
who, over and above the surprise occasioned by the application,
was almost suffocated by the liquor that entered his mouth, and ran
down into his windpipe. While he gasped like a person half-drowned,
without knowing the nature of his disaster, or remembering the
situation in which he fell asleep, Peregrine retired to his own
door, and, to his no small astonishment, from a long howl that
invaded his ears, learned that the patient was no other than Pallet,
who had now, for the third time, balked his good fortune.
Enraged at the complicated trespasses of this unfortunate offender,
he rushed from his apartment with a horsewhip, and, encountering
the painter in his flight, overturned him in the passage. There he
exercised the instrument of his wrath with great severity on pretence
of mistaking him for some presumptuous cur, which had disturbed
the repose of the inn: nay, when he called aloud for mercy
in a supplicating tone, and his chastiser could no longer pretend
to treat him as a quadruped, such was the virulence of the young
gentleman's indignation, that he could not help declaring his
satisfaction, by telling Pallet he had richly deserved the punishment
he had undergone, for his madness, folly, and impertinence, in
contriving and executing such idle schemes, as had no other tendency
than that of plaguing his neighbours.
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