Unable however to elude her grasp he fell down upon his knees. "For God's
sake! Oh dear! Oh lack a daisy! Why, Miss, sure you are mad." Miss
Cranley, unheedful of his exclamations, was however just going to begin
with more vehemence than ever, when a sudden accident put a stop to the
torrent of her oratory. But this event cannot be properly related without
going back a little in our narrative, and acquainting the reader with some
of those circumstances by which it was produced.
CHAPTER VI.
_A Catastrophe_.
Sir William Twyford had gained great credit with lord Martin by his
conduct in the affair of Mr. Prettyman. He now imagined that he saw an
opening for the exercise of his humour, which he was never able to refill.
He communicated his plan to lord Martin. By his assistance he procured
that implement, which school-boys have denominated a cracker. This his
lordship found an opportunity of attaching to the skirt of Miss Cranley's
sack. At the moment we have described, when she was again going to enter
into the stream of her rhetoric, which, great as it naturally was, was now
somewhat improved with copious draughts of claret, the cracker was set on
fire.
Poor Sophia now started in great agitation. "Bounce, bounce," went the
cracker. Sophia skipped and danced from one end of the room to the other.
"Great gods of Rome," exclaimed she, "Jupiter, Minerva, and all the
celestial and infernal deities!" The force of the cracker was now somewhat
spent.
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