Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/132

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124
PAUL CLIFFORD.

dame had set her heart on my turning out an honest man."

"And so you have!" interrupted Augustus; "honest to your party: what more would you have from either prig or politician?"

"I believe," continued Clifford, not heeding the interruption, "that my poor mother, before she died, desired that I might be reared honestly; and strange as it may seem to you—Dame Lobkins is a conscientious woman in her own way—it is not her fault if I have turned out as I have done. Now I know well that it would grieve her to the quick to see me what I am. Secondly, my friend, under my new names, various as they are,—Jackson and Howard, Russel and Pigwiggin, Villiers and Gotobed, Cavendish and Solomons,—you may well suppose that the good persons in the neighbourhood of Thames Court have no suspicion that the adventurous and accomplished Ruffler, at present Captain of this district, under the new appellation of Lovett, is in reality no other than the obscure and surnameless Paul of