re polite.

"Perkins?" said Carey, pausing in his operations, in the vain endeavour
to recall the name among the score or two to whom he had been
introduced. "I'm just in bed--were you up at Leicester's?"

"Open the door, sir, if you please, immediately," and then came what our
friend took for a smothered laugh, but was really a sort of shiver, for
there was a draft in the passage playing all manner of pranks with the
dressing-gown, and Mr Perkins was getting cold.

An indistinct notion came into Carey's mind, that some one who had met
him in College might have taken him for a Freshman, and had some
practical joke in view; so he contented himself with repeating that he
was going to bed, and could let no one in.

"I tell you, sir, I'm Mr Perkins; don't you know me?"

"I wish you a very good night, Mr Perkins."

"What's your name, sir? eh? You impudent young puppy, what's your
infernal name? I'll have you rusticated, you dog--do you hear me, sir?"

On a sudden it struck Carey that this might possibly be a domiciliary
visit from one of the authorities, and that his best plan was to open
the door at once, though what had procured him such an honour he was at
a loss to imagine. He drew back the spring lock, therefore, and the next
moment stood face to face with the irate Mr Perkins.

His first impulse was to laugh at the curious figure before him; but
when demands for his name, and threats of unknown penalties, were
thundered forth upon him with no pause for a reply, then he began to
think that he had made a mistake in opening the door at all--that he
might get Leicester into a scrape if not himself--and as his person was
as unknown to Mr Perkins as that gentleman's to him, it struck him that
if he could give him the slip once, it would be all right. In a moment
he blew out his solitary candle, bolted through the open door, all but
upsetting his new acquaintance, whom he left storming in the most
unconnected manner, alone, and in total darkness. Up to Leicester's
rooms he rushed, related his adventure, and was rather surprised that
his cousin did not applaud it as a very clever thing.

What Mr Perkins thought or said to himself, what degree of patience he
exhibited in such trying circumstances, or in what terms he
apostrophised his flying enemy, must ever remain a secret with himself.
Five minutes after, Solomon the porter, summoned from his bed just as he
had made himself snug once more after letting out Horace's o