agreed.
your penalty is to find a cherry- colored ribbon which i have hidden somewhere on my person. you are free to look for it anywhere you will, and i will think very little of you if you do not find it.
then you must get it.
why are you shaking?
sure it's a bitter night, roderick dear, and you'll catch cold without a handkerchief to your neck.
did you and miss clancy have a pleasant evening, roderick? you were together, i saw, all night.
oh! mercy, you make daisy rear and throw me, you careless creature, you.
i had not been in the room five minutes before i was engaged for every single set.
i don't care a fig for captain best; he dances prettily to be sure, and is a pleasant rattle of a man. he looks well in his regimentals, too; and if he chose to ask me to dance, how could i refuse him?
oh! i can dance with you any day, and to dance with your own cousin at a ball as if you could find no other partner. besides, roderick, captain best's a man, and you are only a boy, and you haven't a guinea in the world.
but captain best is already known as a valiant soldier, and is famous as a man of fashion in london. it is mighty well of you to fight farmers' boys, but to fight an englishman is a very different matter.
suppose, now, roderick, you, who are such a hero, was passing over the bridge and the enemy on the other side.
what, with me on the pillion? would you kill poor me?
jump twenty feet! you wouldn't dare to do any such thing on daisy. there's the captain's horse, black george, i've heard say that captain bes --
ah, you men, you men, john, your passion is not equal to ours. we are like -- like some plant i've read of -- we bear but one flower, and then we die!
never, my john, but for thee! how can you ask me such a question?
captain best, for heaven's sake, spare the child -- he is but an infant.
good heavens, best! he is but a boy and don't signify any more than my parrot or lap-dog. mayn't i give a bit of ribbon to my own cousin?
monster! your father was a tailor, and you are always thinking of the shop. but i'll have my revenge, i will! roddy, will you see me insulted?
oh, i shall die; i know i shall. i shall never leave this spot.