"It cost me some invention to conceal my condition from his notice,
being now within a week of the expected crisis. But I knew I had to
do with a man of no great penetration, and succeeded in my attempt
accordingly. We breakfasted with great harmony, and I invited him
to dinner, after having prevailed upon him to send away his myrmidons,
whom, nevertheless, he ordered to return at eleven o'clock at night.
We conversed together with great gaiety and mirth. When I rallied
him for visiting me in such a dishabille, he stood on tiptoe to
view himself in the glass; and, owning I was in the right, said
he would go and dress himself before dinner. He accordingly went
away, charging my maid to give him entrance at his return; and he
was no sooner gone than I wrote to Mr. S--, giving him an account
of what had happened. Then, without having determined on any certain
plan, I huddled on my clothes, muffled myself up, and calling a
chair, went to the next tavern, where I stayed no longer than was
sufficient to change my vehicle; and, to the astonishment of the
drawers, who could not conceive the meaning of my perturbation,
proceeded to a shop in the neighbourhood, where I dismissed my
second chair, and procured a hackney-coach, in which I repaired
to the lodgings of my lawyer, whom I could trust.
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