BOOK V.

Chapter i.

_In which the reader will meet with an old acquaintance._


Booth's affairs were put on a better aspect than they had ever worn
before, and he was willing to make use of the opportunity of one day
in seven to taste the fresh air.

At nine in the morning he went to pay a visit to his old friend
Colonel James, resolving, if possible, to have a full explanation of
that behaviour which appeared to him so mysterious: but the colonel
was as inaccessible as the best defended fortress; and it was as
impossible for Booth to pass beyond his entry as the Spaniards found
it to take Gibraltar. He received the usual answers; first, that the
colonel was not stirring, and an hour after that he was gone out. All
that he got by asking further questions was only to receive still
ruder answers, by which, if he had been very sagacious, he might have
been satisfied how little worth his while it was to desire to go in;
for the porter at a great man's door is a kind of thermometer, by
which you may discover the warmth or coldness of his master's
friendship. Nay, in the highest stations of all, as the great man
himself hath his different kinds of salutation, from an hearty embrace
with a kiss, and my dear lord or dear Sir Charles, down to, well Mr.
----, what would you have me do? so the porter to some bows with
respect, to others with a smile, to some he bows more, to others less