Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 2).djvu/306

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he did not want to meet; he therefore requested Scribble to settle for him, as he could not wait to call for a bill, and before the other could answer, departed with great expedition, by a door that opened into a lane. The fact, it seems, was, in returning to the parlour, he had, through the glass door of the coffee-house, seen two persons reconnoitring the boxes. One of the persons he well knew, and in company with whom he had oftener been than he wished. Fortunately recollecting that one door of the back parlour afforded an escape by the lane, he had bolted that which communicated with the passage, so as to obstruct pursuit; and he had not been gone two minutes, when a rough voice called at the door, "open." The waiter, comprehending the case, ran round the other way, and told the gentlemen, for God's sake, if they were