Fool knows.' And with this, at which all of us laughed, my Lord
called for a bottle, and he and I sat down and drank it together.

"Well, he was in disgrace, as you know, but he grew mighty fond of
me, and--would you believe it?--nothing would satisfy him but
presenting me at Court! Yes, to Her Sacred Majesty the Queen, and
my Lady Marlborough, who was in high feather. Ay, truly, the
sentinels on duty used to salute me as if I were Corporal John
himself! I was on the high road to fortune. Charley Mordaunt used
to call me Jack, and drink canary at my chambers; I used to make one
at my Lord Treasurer's levee; I had even got Mr. Army-Secretary
Walpole to take a hundred guineas as a compliment: and he had
promised me a majority: when bad luck turned, and all my fine hopes
were overthrown in a twinkling.

"You see, my dear, that after we had left that gaby,
Galgenstein,--ha, ha--with a gag in his mouth, and twopence-
halfpenny in his pocket, the honest Count was in the sorriest plight
in the world; owing money here and there to tradesmen, a cool
thousand to the Warwickshire Squire: and all this on eighty pounds
a year! Well, for a little time the tradesmen held their hands;
while the jolly Count moved heaven and earth to catch hold of his
dear Corporal and his dear money-bags over again, and placarded
every town from London to Liverpool with descriptions of my pretty
person. The bird was flown, however,--the money clean gone,--and
when there was no hope of regaining it, what did the creditors do
but clap my gay gentleman into Shrewsbury gaol: where I wish he had
rotted, for my part.

"But no such luck for honest Peter Brock, or Captain Wood, as he was