"Stout as a pot o' ginger," Solomon answered. "I rassled with him one
evenin' down in Virginny an' I'll never tackle him ag'in, you hear to
me. His right flipper is as big as mine an' when it takes holt ye'd
think it were goin' to strip the shuck off yer soul."

"He's in every way a big man," said the Doctor. "On the whole, he's
about our biggest man. An officer who came out of the ambuscade at
Fort Duquesne with thirty living men out of three companies and four
shot holes in his coat must have an engagement with Destiny. Evidently
his work was not finished. You have traveled about some. What is the
feeling over there toward England?"

"They're like a b'ilin' pot everywhere. England has got to step
careful now."

"Tell Sir Jeffrey that, if you see him, just that. Don't mince
matters. Jack, I'll send my man with you and Mr. Binkus to show you
the new lodgings. We found them this morning."

CHAPTER VI

THE LOVERS

The fashionable tailor was done with Jack's equipment. Franklin had
seen and approved the admirably shaped and fitted garments. The young
man and his friend Solomon had moved to their new lodgings on
Bloomsbury Square. The scout had acquired a suit for street wear and
was now able to walk abroad without exciting the multitudes. The
Doctor was planning what he called "a snug little party." So he
announced when Jack and Solomon came, adding:

"But first you are to meet Margaret and her mother here at half after
four."

Jack made careful preparation for that event. Fortunately it was a
clear, bright day after foggy weather. Solomon had refused to go with
Jack for fear of being in the way.

"I want to see her an' her folks but I reckon ye'll have yer hands full
to-day," he remarked. "Ye don't need no scout on that kind o'
reconnoiterin'. You go on ahead an' git through with yer smackin an'
bym-by I'll straggle in."

Precisely at four thirty-five Jack presented himself at the lodgings of
his distinguished friend. He has said in a letter, when his dramatic
adventures were all behind him, that this was the most thrilling moment
he had known. "The butler had told me that the ladies were there," he
wrote. "Upon my word it put me out of breath climbing that little
flight of stairs. But it was in fact the end of a long journey. It is
curious that my feeling then should remind me, as it does, of moments
when I have been close up to the enemy, within his lines, and lying
hard ag