Page:Adventures of Cap. Gulliver.pdf/23

 so signal a service as would have put aside all suspicions of his fidelity He was alarmed at midnight with horrid cries; and several of the courtiers intreated him to repair immediately to the palace, for her Majesty's apartments were on fire, by the carlessness of a maid of honor. who fell asleep while she was reading a romance Mr Gulliver got up and made the best of his way to the metropolis he might easily have stifled the fire with the flap of his coat but that in his haste he had unfortunately left behind him—The case was truly deplorable, Mr Gulliver had, however, drunk plentifully of wine, and this by his coming very near the flames, and by his labouring to quench them, began to operate and was voided in such a quantity, and was so properly applied, that in three minutes the fire was totally extinguished. By the laws of the realm however, it was a capital offence for any person to make water within the predinct of the palace, and Mr. Gulliver was informed, that the Emperor would rather that the palace had been burnt to the ground, than he shoddshould [sic] made use of such filthy means of extinguishing the fire; and as for the Empress she would never be