"
"True, dame--true,--let us hope for the best; but I must take my cloak
and rapier, and pray your husband in courtesy to teach me the way to a
magistrate."
"Sure, sir," said the prompt dame, "I can do that as well as he, who
has been a slow man of his tongue all his life, though I will give him
his due for being a loving husband, and a man as well to pass in the
world as any betwixt us and the top of the lane. And so there is the
sitting alderman, that is always at the Guildhall, which is close by
Paul's, and so I warrant you he puts all to rights in the city that
wisdom can mend; and for the rest there is no help but patience. But I
wish I were as sure of forty pounds as I am that the young man will
come back safe and sound."
Olifaunt, in great and anxious doubt of what the good dame so strongly
averred, flung his cloak on one shoulder, and was about to belt on his
rapier, when first the voice of Richie Moniplies on the stair, and
then that faithful emissary's appearance in the chamber, put the
matter beyond question. Dame Nelly, after congratulating Moniplies on
his return, and paying several compliments to her own sagacity for
having foretold it, was at length pleased to leave the apartment. The
truth was, that, besides some instinctive feelings of good breeding
which combated her curiosity, she saw there was no chance of Richie's
proceeding in his narrative while she was in the room, and she
therefore retreated, trusting that her own address would get the
secret out of one or other of the young men, when she should have
either by himself.
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