concealing any of his thoughts), she said to him after he had done
eating, "My dear, I am sure something more than ordinary hath happened
to-day, and I beg you will tell me what is."

Booth answered that nothing of any consequence had happened; that he
had been detained by a friend, whom he met accidently, longer than he
expected. In short, he made many shuffling and evasive answers, not
boldly lying out, which, perhaps, would have succeeded, but poorly and
vainly endeavouring to reconcile falsehood with truth; an attempt
which seldom fails to betray the most practised deceiver.

How impossible was it therefore for poor Booth to succeed in an art
for which nature had so entirely disqualified him. His countenance,
indeed, confessed faster than his tongue denied, and the whole of his
behaviour gave Amelia an alarm, and made her suspect something very
bad had happened; and, as her thoughts turned presently on the badness
of their circumstances, she feared some mischief from his creditors
had befallen him; for she was too ignorant of such matters to know
that, if he had fallen into the hands of the Philistines (which is the
name given by the faithful to bailiffs), he would hardly have been
able so soon to recover his liberty. Booth at last perceived her to be
so uneasy, that, as he saw no hopes of contriving any fiction to
satisfy her, he thought himself obliged to tell her the truth, or at
least part of the truth, and confessed that he had had a little
skirmish with Colonel Bath, in which, he said, the colonel had
received a slight wound, not at all dangerous; "and this," says he,
"is all the whole matter." "If it be so," cries Amelia, "I thank
Heaven no worse hath happened; but why, my dear, will you ever
converse with that madman, who can embrace a friend one moment, and
fight with him the next?" "Nay, my dear," answered Booth, "you