But Mistress Polly was also very kind-hearted. She loved to tease
Master Jezzard, who was an indefatigable hanger-on at her pretty
skirts, and whose easy conquest had rendered her somewhat
contemptuous, but at the look of perplexed annoyance and
bewildered distress in the lad's face, her better nature soon got the
upper hand. She realized that her remark had been unwarrantably
spiteful, and wishing to make atonement, she said with a touch of
coquetry which quickly spread balm over the honest yokel's injured
vanity:

"La! Master Jezzard, you do seem to make a body say some queer
things. But there! you must own 'tis mighty funny about that Scarlet
Pimpernel!" she added, appealing to the company in general, just as if
Master Jezzard had been disputing the fact. "Why won't he let anyone
see who he is? And those who know him won't tell. Now I have it for
a fact from my lady's own maid Lucy, that the young lady as is
stopping at Lady Blakeney's house has actually spoken to the man.
She came over from France, come a fortnight to-morrow; she and the
gentleman they call Mossoo Deroulede. They both saw the Scarlet
Pimpernel and spoke to him. He brought them over from France.
They why won't they say?"

"Say what?" commented Johnny Cullen, the apprentice.

"Who this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel is."

"Perhaps he isn't," said old Clutterbuck, who was clerk of the vestry
at the church of St. John's the Evangelist.

"Yes!" he added sententiously, for he was fond of his own sayings