Jack?' But Jack Potts grew more positive and bellowed, 'Peel her wig!
we're done!'

And she did not speak a word, but stood huddled-up and hooded; and Lord
Levellier caught her up by the arm as she was trying a dash into the
hall, and Sir Upton Tomber plucked at her veil and raised it, and
whistled:

'Phew!'--which struck the rabble below with awe of the cunning of the Old
Buccaneer; and there was no need for them to hear General Abrane say:
'Right! Jack, we've a dead one in hand,' or Jack Potts reply:

'It's ten thousand pounds clean winged away from my pocket, like a string
of wild geese!'

The excitement of the varletry in the square, they say, was fearful to
hear. So the principal noblemen and gentlemen concerned thought it
prudent to hurry the young woman into the house and bar the door; and
there she was very soon stripped of veil and blonde false wig with long
curls, the whole framing of her artificial resemblance to Countess Fanny,
and she proved to be a good-looking foreign maid, a dark one, powdered,
trembling very much, but not so frightened upon hearing that her penalty
for the share she had taken in the horrid imposture practised upon them
was to receive and return a salute from each of the gentlemen in
rotation; which the hussy did with proper submission; and Jack Potts
remarked, that 'it was an honest buss, but dear at ten thousand!'

When you have been the victim of a deceit, the explanation of the
simplicity of the trick turns all the wonder upon yourself, you know, and
the backers of the Old Buccaneer and the wagerers against him crowed and