The young gentlemen helped to
expand it, and it covered the whole extent of the carpet, and nobody
found anything remarkable in it.
I had already become uneasy, nay, horrified at heart, but how
completely so, as, at the very next wish expressed, I saw him yet pull
out of his pocket three roadsters--I tell thee, three beautiful great
black horses, with saddle and caparison. Bethink thee! for God's
sake!--three saddled horses, still out of the same pocket from which
already a pocket-book, a telescope, an embroidered carpet, twenty
paces long and ten broad, a pleasure-tent of equal dimensions, and all
the requisite poles and irons, had come forth! If I did not protest to
thee that I saw it myself with my own eyes, thou couldst not possibly
believe it.
Embarrassed and obsequious as the man himself appeared to be, little
as was the attention which had been bestowed upon him, yet to me his
grisly aspect, from which I could not turn my eyes, became so fearful
that I could bear it no longer.
I resolved to steal away from the company, which from the
insignificant part I played in it seemed to me an easy affair. I
proposed to myself to return to the city, to try my luck again on the
morrow with Mr. John, and if I could muster the necessary courage,
to question him about the singular gray man. Had I only had the good
fortune to escape so well!
I had already actually succeeded in stealing through the rosary, and,
in descending the hill, found myself on a piece of lawn, when, fearing
to be encountered in crossing the grass out of the path, I cast an
inquiring glance round me.
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