Tom Seddon rushed from the room in headlong haste, and running against Botts in the corridor, hurled him down a stairway. The unlucky Botts, in his night-garments, rolled over and over until he reached the bottom, when he found himself among a number of females, who loudly shrieked and fled in terror from the hideous apparition. Tom stopped not to inquire if any bones were broken, but went off as fast as his legs could carry him after a doctor to pump out the poison, while Botts rushed up the stairway in his night-clothes, and put another party of females to flight on the upper landing. He was followed into the apartment, where poor Perch lay on the bed, by the landlord, who was in a towering rage.

"Mr. Botts!" shouted the landlord, shaking his ponderous fist at Botts, who was leaning over the unfortunate Perch,--"Mr. Botts! what do you mean by running about my house with no clothes on your----"

"Hush!" said Botts.

"Hush!" said Wiggins.

"For Heaven's sake, hush!" exclaimed Pate.

The landlord glared like an enraged lion at each of the speakers in succession, and then advancing on Botts, seized him by the collar and hurled him around until his fragile clothing was torn from his person, and Botts fell over a trunk and sat in a corner of the room almost in a state of complete nudity.

"You shameless, impudent, outrageous, ugly beast! do you think that I will allow you to be running and racing about among the ladies in my house like a naked savage?"

"Hold!" cried Wiggins.

"Respect the dead!" exclaimed Pate, pointing to poor Perch lying on the bed.

"Who's dead?" said the landlord, looking aghast.

"Look there!" said Pate.

The landlord stepped forward and leaned over Perch.

"Who says he is dead?" asked Boniface.

"He has taken poison?" said Pate.

"A whole pint--enough to kill fifty men!" said Wiggins.

"He is drunk!" said the landlord.

"Shame! shame!" cried Pate.

"Insult the dead!" exclaimed Wiggins.

"He is drunk! I'll bet my hat on it!" said the landlord.

Here Tom Seddon rushed into the room, followed by a doctor carrying a stomach-pump in his hand.

"Here, doctor! here!" exclaimed Pate. "Quick! quick!"

"Open his month," said the doctor.

Pate proceeded to obey instructions, and succeeded in opening the Long Green Boy's mouth, but he unfortunately got his fingers in the orifice, and the jaws closed firmly on them.

"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed Pate, with his forefinger between the teeth of the dying man.

"Force his jaws open," said the doctor, holding the tube ready for insertion.

"Oh! oh! oh! oh! gracious heavens!" exclaimed Pate.

Toney Belton, by an adroit use of his thumb, succeeded in opening the jaws and releasing Pate, who danced about the room, exclaiming, "Oh!

oh! oh!" while the doctor hastily thrust the tube down his patient's throat.

A quant.i.ty of fluid was pumped into a basin.

"What did you say he had taken?" inquired the doctor, examining the contents of the basin.

"Laudanum!" said Wiggins. "A whole pint of it."

"Enough to kill a team of horses!" said Tom Seddon.

"This is not laudanum," said the doctor, with a look of intense disgust at his patient.

"What is it?" asked Wiggins.

"Brandy," said the doctor.

"Just as I said," exclaimed the landlord. "I can tell a drunken man from a dead man any day."

The diagnosis of the landlord was correct. The wily apothecary had given the despairing swain a bottle of brandy, and instead of romantically dying for love, he had become stupidly drunk.

CHAPTER XIII.

In the morning Botts, who had been so rudely accosted and so roughly handled by the landlord in the apartment of the unfortunate Long Green Boy, was in close and earnest consultation with Wiggins. The question for solution was whether the landlord was a gentleman, and as such amenable for the insult offered to Botts by his language and the a.s.sault on his person. The Thirty-nine Articles of the Code of Honor were carefully consulted, and the question was finally determined in the affirmative. The social status of the offender being settled, Wiggins undertook to carry a cartel from Botts to Boniface.

Wiggins found the landlord in his office making out bills and handed him Botts's invitation to the field of honor.

"What's this?" asked the landlord.

"It is a note from Mr. Botts," said Wiggins. "Be so good as to read it and then refer me to your friend, so that there may be arrangements made for a speedy meeting."

The landlord looked over the paper and then picked up a big cudgel, which leaned against the wall, and advanced towards Wiggins, who began to retreat.

"Oh, you need not run," said Boniface,--"I am not going to thrash you.

But where is Botts?"

"In his room," said Wiggins.

"I'll break every bone in his body!" said the landlord.

"What?" said Wiggins.

"I'll pound his worthless carca.s.s to a jelly!" And he started toward the door.