 by the behaviour of the coquette, who, furious with her
disappointment, slipped on a petticoat and bed-gown, and springing upon him,
like another Hecuba, with her nails, deprived all one side of his nose of the
skin, and would not have left him an eye to see thro', if some of the company
had not rescued him from her unmerciful talons. Provoked at this outrage, as
well as by her behaviour to him in the Diligence, he publickly explained his
intention in entering her chamber in this equipage; and, missing the Hebrew
among the spectators, assured them, that he must have absconded somewhere in the
apartment: in consequence of this intimation, the room was immediately searched,
and the mortified Levite pulled by the heels from his lurking-place; so that
Pallet had the good fortune, at last, to transfer the laugh from himself to his
rival, and the French inamorata, who accordingly underwent the ridicule of the
whole audience.
 

                                  Chapter LXI

Pallet, endeavouring to unravel the Mystery of the Treatment he had received,
falls out of the Frying Pan into the Fire
 
Nevertheless, Pallet was still confounded, and chagrined by one consideration,
which was no other than that of his having been so roughly handled in the
chamber, belonging (as he found upon enquiry) to the handsome young lady, who
was under the Capuchin's direction. He recollected, that the door was fast
locked, when his beast burst it open, and he had no reason to believe that any
person followed him in his irruption: on the other hand, he could not imagine,
that such a gentle creature would either attempt to commit, or be able to
execute such a desperate assault as that which his body had sustained; and her
demeanor was so modest and circumspect, that he durst not harbour the least
suspicion of her virtue.
    These reflexions bewildered him in the labyrinth of thought: he rummaged his
whole imagination, endeavouring to account for what had happened; and at length
concluded, that either Peregrine, or the devil, or both, must have been at the
bottom of the whole affair, and determined, for the satisfaction of his
curiosity, to watch our hero's motions, during the remaining part of the night,
so narrowly, that his conduct, mysterious as it was, should not be able to elude
his penetration.
    With these sentiments he retired to his own room, after the ass had been
restored to the right owners, and the priest had visited and confirmed his fair
ward, who had been almost distracted with fear; and silence no sooner
