er.

And it was while Rawdon's mind was agitated with these doubts and
perplexities that the incident occurred which was mentioned in the last
chapter, and the unfortunate Colonel found himself a prisoner away from
home.

CHAPTER LIII

A Rescue and a Catastrophe

Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss's mansion in Cursitor Street,
and was duly inducted into that dismal place of hospitality. Morning
was breaking over the cheerful house-tops of Chancery Lane as the
rattling cab woke up the echoes there. A little pink-eyed Jew-boy,
with a head as ruddy as the rising morn, let the party into the house,
and Rawdon was welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss, his
travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked him if he would
like a glass of something warm after his drive.

The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would be, who,
quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find themselves barred into a
spunging-house; for, if the truth must be told, he had been a lodger at
Mr. Moss's establishment once or twice before. We have not thought it
necessary in the previous course of this narrative to mention these
trivial little domestic incidents: but the reader may be assured that
they can't unfrequently occur in the life of a man who lives on nothing
a year.

Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the Colonel, then a bachelor, had
been liberated by the generosity of his aunt; on the second mishap,
little Becky, with the greatest spirit and kindness, had borrowed a sum
of money from Lord Southdown and had coaxed her husband's creditor (who
was her shawl, velvet-gown, lace pocket-handkerchief, trinket, and
gim-crack purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the sum claimed and
Rawdon's promissory note for the remainder: so on both these occasions
the capture and release had been conducted with the utmost gallantry on
all sides, and Moss and the Colonel were therefore on the very best of
terms.

"You'll find your old bed, Colonel, and everything comfortable," that
gentleman said, "as I may honestly say. You may be pretty sure its kep
aired, and by the best of company, too. It was slep in the night afore
last by the Honorable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose
Mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said.
But, Law bless you, I promise you, he punished my champagne, and had a
party ere every night--reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs and
the West End--Capting Ragg,