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In short, the cunning fellow fancied he saw, by many small signs, a very decided preference on her part for the handsome and melancholy, but evidently eloquent stranger. Like other cunning fellows, however, Cluffe was not always right; and right or wrong, in his own illusions, if such they were, little Puddock was, for the time, substantially blessed.
'And what the devil is all this for, Sir? ten twelve pounds ten shillings freightage and care on the way and twenty-five, by George, Sir not far from forty pounds, Sir, roared Cluffe. 'Where'll I bring him to, Sir? asked the driver. The captain bellowed an address we sha'n't print here. 'Curse him curse the brute! forty pounds! and the captain swore hugely, 'you scoundrel!
Just then Puddock's end of the boat touched a stone, or a post, or something in the current, and that in which Cluffe sat came wheeling swiftly round across the stream, and brought the gallant captain so near the bank that, with a sudden jerk, he caught the end of a branch that stretched far over the water, and, spite of the confounded tightness of his toilet, with the energy of sheer terror, climbed a good way; but, reaching a point where the branch forked, he could get no further, though he tugged like a brick.
He talked upon his old themes, and upon the subject of Puddock, was, as usual, very friendly and intercessorial; in fact, she showed at last signs of yielding. 'Well, Captain Cluffe, tell him if he cares to come, he may come, and be on the old friendly footing; but be sure you tell him he owes it all to you.
Captain Cluffe was quite clear he had seen an instrument in the prisoner's hand on the night of the murder, as he looked into the little bed-chamber of the Brass Castle, so unexpectedly. When he put down the towel, he raised it from the toilet, where it lay.
'Go on, if you please, Ma'am, and let me see it. So to the hall they went, and there, lying across the pegs from which Mr. Dangerfield's surtout and riding-coat depended, there certainly was a whip with the butt fashioned very much in the shape described by Captain Cluffe; but alas, no weapon a mere toy leather and cat-gut.
'If you can't congratulate me, 'twould be kinder not to say anything, Captain Cluffe; and nobody must speak in my presence of that lady but with proper respect; and I I thought, Cluffe, you'd have wished me well, and shaken hands and said something something
He did not know that the entire question had been settled in a minute-and-a-half, and that Cluffe was at that moment rattling away at backgammon with his arch-enemy, Toole, in a corner of the club parlour. It was not till Cluffe, as he emerged from the Phoenix, saw Sturk's figure stalking in the glimpses of the moon, under the village elm, that he suddenly recollected and marched up to him.
And they stood, each in his reverie, looking over the battlement toward Belmont, and hearing the hushed roll of the river, and seeing nothing but the deep blue, and the stars, and the black outline of the trees that overhung the bridge, until the enamoured Cluffe, who liked his comforts, and knew what gout was, felt the chill air, and remembered suddenly that they had stopped, and ought to be in motion toward their beds, and so he shook up Puddock, and they started anew, and parted just at the Phoenix, shaking hands heartily, like two men who had just done a good stroke of business together.
When Cluffe was shown the whip, which bore a rude resemblance to this instrument, and which Lowe had assumed to be all that Cluffe had really seen, the gallant captain peremptorily pooh-poohed it. 'Twas no such thing. The whip-handle was light in comparison, and it was too long to fit in the drawer.
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