 a
remnant of modesty avoided him for no other reason, but because she knew herself
incapable of resisting his sollicitations.
    Mr. Gauntlet profited by this discovery, which was communicated to him
through the canal of his friend, relinquished the mercenary coquet, and found
means to vanquish the reserve of the other. Peregrine himself was, in like
manner, set to rights, in certain opinions he had conceived of his own influence
with particular ladies; and as no person ever offended him with impunity, he
projected a scheme of vengeance against a remarkable inamorato, who to his
assiduities preferred those of a brawny fellow, that, from the place of a
private trooper in the horse-guards, had been preferred to the rank of a
lieutenant, by the interest of a dowager lately deceased. With this favourite
did the lady make an assignation, in the hearing of Cadwallader, who gave our
hero to understand, that he was to be received by her woman, in the dark, at a
parlour-door that opened into a small garden, the wall of which he could easily
overleap, after the servants should be retired to rest.
    Peregrine, fraught with this intelligence, resolved to anticipate his rival;
and accordingly, by the ministration of his companion, engaged a couple of stout
chairmen, who being posted on the spot, seized the lover in his endeavours to
surmount the wall, and conveyed him to a place of confinement, on pretence of
supposing his design was to rob the house. He was no sooner secured in this
manner, than Pickle, being determined to prosecute the adventure, transported
himself into the garden, and personating the lieutenant, went to the door, made
the signal which had been agreed upon, was admitted by the attendant, conducted
to her lady's apartment, that was darkened for her reception; and having enjoyed
his revenge, with every circumstance of satisfaction, made his retreat before
day, without being discovered, after having been gratified with a valuable ring,
as a testimony of her ladyship's affection.
    Mean while the disappointed captive finding himself involved in a
troublesome affair, that must end either in his own disgrace, or in that of his
mistress, whom he could not with honour expose, employed all his art in
tampering with his detainers, who pretended to have detected him as they passed
that way by accident, and who would not listen to the terms he proposed for his
release until it was almost day; and then, by the permission of their employers,
they set him at liberty, in consideration of five guineas, which he divided
between them.
