th slight aid from your Grace's people, they must carry
Whitehall, and make prisoners of all within it."

"Rascal!" said the Duke, "and is it to a Peer of England you make this
communication?"

"Nay," answered Christian, "I admit it would be extreme folly in your
Grace to appear until all is over. But let me give Blood and the
others a hint on your part. There are the four Germans also--right
Knipperdolings and Anabaptists--will be specially useful. You are wise,
my lord, and know the value of a corps of domestic gladiators, as well
as did Octavius, Lepidus, and Anthony, when, by such family forces, they
divided the world by indenture tripartite."

"Stay, stay," said the Duke. "Even if these bloodhounds were to
join with you--not that I would permit it without the most positive
assurances for the King's personal safety--but say the villains were to
join, what hope have you of carrying the Court?"

"Bully Tom Armstrong,[*] my lord, hath promised his interest with the
Life Guards. Then there are my Lord Shaftesbury's brisk boys in the
city--thirty thousand on the holding up a finger."

[*] Thomas, or Sir Thomas Armstrong, a person who had distinguished
himself in youth by duels and drunken exploits. He was
particularly connected with the Duke of Monmouth, and was said to
be concerned in the Rye-House Plot, for which he suffered capital
punishment, 20th June 1684.

"Let him hold up both hands, and if he count a hundred for each finger,"
said the Duke, "it will be more than I expect. You have not spoken to
him?"

"Surely not till your Grace's pleasure was known. But, if he is not
applied to, there is the Dutch train, Hans Snorehout's congregation, in
the Strand--there are the French Protestants in Piccadilly--there are
the family of Levi in Lewkenor's Lane--the Muggletonians in Thames
Street----"

"Ah, faugh!--Out upon them--out upon them!--How the knaves will stink of
cheese and tobacco when they come upon action!--they will drown all the
perfumes in Whitehall. Spare me the detail; and let me know, my dearest
Ned, the sum total of thy most odoriferous forces."

"Fifteen hundred men, well armed," said Christian, "besides the rabble
that will rise to a certainty--they have already nearly torn to pieces
the prisoners who were this day acquitted on account of the Plot."

"All, then, I understand.--And now, hark ye, most Christian Christian,"
said he, wheeling his chair full in front of that on which