again that I'd be better suited if he'd hold his tongue.
"But you, my dear lady, you?" says he, heedless of my sharp reply, "'twill never do for you to be discovered with me thus. Nay, you shall not. Rat me, but I have a plan! They are still underneath this trap, you see, assembled in a talk. I'll drop down in their midst, scuffle with 'em, and while we are thus engaged, you can get from here into the yard, and slip back to the house unseen, and so leave them none the wiser."
"Very pretty," says I, "but how am I to get from here into the yard? It means a ten-feet drop upon weak ankles, for the ladder, you observe, is no longer there."
"Confound it!" says he. "I'd forgot the ladder. Of course it is not there. What a fool I am! But 'oons! here's a means to overcome it, madam. We'll drop a truss of straw down, and that will break your fall if you leap upon it carefully."
"I'm to run away, then, while you, my lad, are to be delivered up to death?"
"Perhaps," he dubiously said; "but then I am the least to be considered."
"Then I intend to do nothing of the sort," says I. "'Tis like man's vanity to cast himself for the part of hero. But I think I can strut through that part just as handsomely as you."
"You have your reputation, madam, to consider," he reminded me. "They surely must not find you here."
