t was that I committed."
"Why, really, I am almost ashamed to enter into particulars: suffice to
say, that you used most unwarrantable freedom towards her."
"Is it possible?" cried the colonel. "Now, Captain Carrington, are you not
joking?"
"Ask this gentleman; he was present."
The assertion of the captain was immediately corroborated, and the colonel
was quite aghast.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, I will run immediately--that abominable wine. I must
go and make a most ample apology. I am bound to do it, as a gentleman, as
an officer, and as a man of honour."
Captain Carrington and his confederate quitted the room, satisfied with the
success of their plot. The colonel rose, and soon afterwards made his
appearance. He swallowed a cup of coffee, and then proceeded on his visit,
to make the _amende honorable_.
When Mr Sullivan awoke from the lethargy produced from the stupefying
effects of the wine, he tried to recollect the circumstances of the
preceding evening; but he could trace no further than to the end of the
dinner, after which his senses had been overpowered. All that he could call
to memory was, that somebody had paid great attention to his wife, and that
what had passed afterwards was unknown. This occasioned him to rise in a
very jealous humour; and he had not been up more than an hour, when the
colonel sent up his card, requesting, as a particular favour, that the lady
would admit him.
The card and message were taken by the servant to Mr Sullivan, whose
jealousy was again roused by the circumstance; and wishing to know if the
person who had now called was the same who had been so attentive to his
wife on the preceding evening, and the motives of the call, he requested
that the colonel might be shown in, without acquainting his wife, whom he
had not yet seen, with his arrival. The colonel, who intended to have made
an apology to the lady without the presence of a third person, least of all
of her husband, ascended the stairs, adjusting his hair and cravat, and
prepared with all the penitent assurance and complimentary excuses of a too
ardent lover. The fact was, that, although the colonel had expressed to
Captain Carrington his regret and distress at the circumstance, yet, as an
old Adonis, he was rather proud of this instance of juvenile indiscretion.
When, therefore, he entered the room, and perceived, instead of the lady,
Mr Sullivan, raised up to his utmost height, and looking anything but
good-hu
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