roared out, 'She's half a foot short o' the mark!'

He was on the pavement, and it seems he measured her as she slipped by
him, and one thing and another caused him to smell a cheat; and General
Abrane, standing beside her near the door, cried: 'Where art flying now,
Jack?' But Jack Potts grew more positive and bellowed, 'Peel her wig!
we're done!'

And she did not speak a word, but stood huddled-up and hooded; and Lord
Levellier caught her up by the arm as she was trying a dash into the
hall, and Sir Upton Tomber plucked at her veil and raised it, and
whistled:

'Phew!'--which struck the rabble below with awe of the cunning of the
Old Buccaneer; and there was no need for them to hear General Abrane
say: 'Right! Jack, we've a dead one in hand,' or Jack Potts reply:

'It's ten thousand pounds clean winged away from my pocket, like a
string of wild geese!'

The excitement of the varletry in the square, they say, was fearful
to hear. So the principal noblemen and gentlemen concerned thought it
prudent to hurry the young woman into the house and bar the door; and
there she was very soon stripped of veil and blonde false wig with
long curls, the whole framing of her artificial resemblance to Countess
Fanny, and she proved to be a good-looking foreign maid, a dark one,
powdered, trembling very much, but not so frightened upon hearing
that her penalty for the share she had taken in the horrid imposture
practised upon them was to receive and return a salute from each of the
gentlemen in rotation; which the hussy did with proper submission;
and Jack Potts remarked, that 'it was an honest buss, but dear at ten
thousand!'

When you have been the victim of a deceit, the explanation of the
simplicity of the trick turns all the wonder upon yourself, you know,
and the backers of the Old Buccaneer and the wagerers against him crowed
and groaned in chorus at the maid's narrative of how the moment Countess
Fanny had thrown up the window of her carriage, she sprang out to a
carriage on the off side, containing Kirby, and how she, this little
French jade, sprang in to take her place. One snap of the fingers and
the transformation was accomplished. So for another kiss all round they
let her go free, and she sat at the supper-table prepared for Countess
Fanny and the party by order of Lord Levellier, and amused the gentlemen
with stories of the ladies she had served, English and foreign. And that
is how men are taught to think they