"
"I will bring no one into trouble on my account," said Lord
Glenvarloch. "I will leave Whitefriars to-morrow. Nay, by Heaven, I
will leave it this day."
"You will have more wit in your anger, I trust," said Duke Hildebrod;
"listen first to what I have to say to you, and, if honest Jack
Hildebrod puts you not in the way of nicking them all, may he never
cast doublets, or dull a greenhorn again! And so, my lord, in plain
words, you must wap and win."
"Your words must be still plainer before I can understand them," said
Nigel.
"What the devil--a gamester, one who deals with the devil's bones and
the doctors, and not understand Pedlar's French! Nay, then, I must
speak plain English, and that's the simpleton's tongue."
"Speak, then, sir," said Nigel; "and I pray you be brief, for I have
little more time to bestow on you."
"Well, then, my lord, to be brief, as you and the lawyers call it--I
understand you have an estate in the north, which changes masters for
want of the redeeming ready.--Ay, you start, but you cannot dance in a
net before me, as I said before; and so the king runs the frowning
humour on you, and the Court vapours you the go-by; and the Prince
scowls at you from under his cap; and the favourite serves you out the
puckered brow and the cold shoulder; and the favourite's favourite--"
"To go no further, sir," interrupted Nigel, "suppose all this true--
and what follows?"
"What follows?" returned Duke Hildebrod.
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