Flunkeyania

chapter V.

Tired as I was, I was undressing myself very leisurely but had nearly concluded that operation, when, lo! the door of my room quietly opened.

I never locked it for fear of being suddenly and secretly summoned.

Who the opener might be, of course, I could not tell, but I certainly did not expect to see Mademoiselle Juliette.

Putting her finger to her lips as a sign of silence and secrecy, she informed me that the Duke was up and evidently bound on some nocturnal ramble, and that she, being in the Duchess's room, Lord Pomeroy (it is to be presumed that he was there too) had begged her to awake me, and desire me to look after his Grace as there was every reason to fear that his destination was the apartment of the Countess.

"So don't sit there staring like an owl in the sunshine," exclaimed the impudent black-eyed girl. "Get up and put your breeches on and I'll help you."

Now I beg to assure my kind readers that at this moment I was in that particular costume in which Charles Lever describes his hero, Harry Lorrequer, being discovered when the bell rang to draw up the curtain at some private theatricals: to wit, a shirt and silk stockings.

Nothing more, upon my honour!

And I leave it to any to say whether it was a delicate operation for a modest young man to undergo to be assisted in pulling on his breeches by an impudent black-eyed soubrette.

The chastest Joseph that ever lived must have yielded to the temptation, and the stupidest gawky of a piously brought-up lout must guess what followed.

I picked up my trousers from the chair upon which they had been flung as I undressed, and pretending to bungle as I bashfully attempted to hide John Thomas, who at the bare idea of a bit of anything fresh, was in his usual unruly state.

"La!" she exclaimed as her hand touched my projecting shirt, "is it anything that will bite?"

"Yes love, but not anything to hurt a darling like you. Won't you stroke his pretty head? It's a pet with all the ladies," I replied, pulling up my shirt and presenting the Vade mecum of pleasure to her eyes.

Juliette at once flushed crimson as she covered her face at the sight, ejaculating: "How dare you, sir? I'll tell the Countess!"

"Not before you've enjoyed it, however, and then you can give me a reference for gallantry as well, which may do me a great service. You're in for it, now, Miss Juliette," I said, shoving her towards the bed, and in spite of her resistance, I soon had her clothes up and got between as beautiful a pair of thighs as I ever saw (she had no drawers on). It wanted only the electric touch of Mr. Pego to make her surrender all discretion. Ah, what an engagement we had, yard-arm to yard-arm, as Jack Tar would say! In fact I fired into her porthole till she surrendered and went off into a faint of ecstasy.

I shall never forget it, short as the fuck was, it was one of the most enjoyable I remember. Time was precious and she soon kissed and forgave my boldness, for, of course, it was only what the young lady had hoped and expected, and so I trust she was satisfied. But now I had to attend to business.

Finding that the Duke had indeed left his room, I proceeded in search of his Grace, not in the direction suggested by Juliette, but in quite another direction than towards my Lady Pomeroy's apartments, to where the under-servants slept. Comfortable rooms enough they were, too.

Now I was perfectly aware that Sophy and Lucy, the two housemaids, slept in one room. There I thought would be my mark, and there, sure enough, I found his Grace evidently on the most affectionate terms with the two young women, whose charms, though not of the most aristocratic class, were by no means to be despised; for he was paying them very liberally in advance, and so I had to remain and see whether he fell into the snare which sometimes awaits the bad paymasters who pay in advance, or I should make but a poor report to my employers. But, no, I had the gratification of witnessing through the medium of the keyhole (after rather a tedious observation, however, for were there not two young women?) that "there is honour among housemaids" and that if his Grace of Dashwood did not get his money's worth it was not the fault of Sophy and Lucy!