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 room at Ranelagh, or the cold bath you went into afterwards? though, I assure you, you look so well that I should advise you to take another dip."

"Ma foi, Sir," cried she, "nobody asked for your advice, so you may as well keep it to yourself: besides, it's no such great joke to be splashed, and to catch cold, and spoil all one's things, whatever you may think of it."

"Splashed, quoth-a!—why I thought you were soused all over.—Come, come, don't mince the matter, never spoil a good story; you know you had n't a dry thread about you—'Fore George, I shall never think on't without hallowing! such a poor, forlorn, draggle-tailed—gentlewoman! and poor Monsieur French, here, like a drowned rat, by your side!—"

"Well, the worse pickle we was in, so much the worser in you not to help us, for you knowed where we was fast enough, because, while I laid in the mud, I'm pretty sure I heard you snigger; so it's like enough you jostled us down yourself, for Monsieur Du Bois says, that he is sure he had a great jolt given him, or he should n't have fell."

The Captain laughed so immoderately, that he really gave me also a suspicion that he was not entirely innocent of the charge: however, he disclaimed it very peremptorily.