Memoirs Of Joseph Grimaldi

MEMOIRS OF JOSEPH (JEIMAI.DI. 103

" Most unquestionably; he will pass us in a few seconds."

'Til tell you what, Joe, I'll bet you a guinea he does not/'
said the friend.

"Nonsense!"

""Well, will you take it ?"

"No, no ; it would be robbing you."

" Oh, leave me to judge about that," said the friend; " I shall
not consider it a robbery: and, so far from that, I'm willing to
make the bet more in your favour.—Come, I'll bet you a guinea,
Joe, that that man don't pass our chaise between this and Dart-
ford."

"Done!" said Grimaldi, well knowing that, unless some
sudden and most unaccountable change took place in the pace at
which the man was riding, he must pass in a minute or two—
" done 1"

"Yery good," said the other.—"Stop—I forgot: remember
that if you laugh or smile, so that he can see you, between this
and Dartford, you will have lost. Is that agreed ?"

" Oh, certainly," replied Grimaldi, very much interested to
know by what mode his friend proposed to win the wager,—
" certainly."

He did not remain very long in expectation: the horseman drew
nearer and nearer, and the noise of his horse's feet was heard
close behind the chaise, when the friend, pulling a pistol from
his pocket, suddenly thrust his head and shoulders out of the
window and presented the pistol full at the face of the uncon-
scious countryman, assuming at the same time a ferocious coun-
tenance and menacing air which were perfectly alarming.
Grimaldi was looking through the little window at the back of
the chaise, and was like to die with laughter when he witnessed
the effect produced by this singular apparition.

The countryman was coming along at the same hard trot, with,
a very serious and business-like countenance, when, all of a
sudden, half a man and the whole of a pistol were presented-he rate at