The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3: Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave; among the moors...

OF MY SERVICE UNDER THE GREAT TURK AS A BASHAW; OF MY ADVENTURES IN RUSSIA AND OTHER COUNTRIES; AND OF MY COMING HOME AT LAST AND BUYING MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE (WHICH IS NOW MINE) IN HANOVER SQUARE. 272 THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN DANGEROUS. A Narrative in Old fashioned English. I SEE MUCH OF THE INSIDE OF THE WORLD, AND THEN GO RIGHT ROUND IT. 1748. I was not yet Forty years of age, Hale and Stout, Comely enough,—so said Mistress Prue and many other damsels,—with a Military Education, an approved reputation for Valour, and very little else besides. A gentleman at large, with a purse well-nigh as slender as an ell-wand, and as wobegone as a dried eel-skin. But I was never one that wanted many Superfluities; and having no Friends in the world, was of a most Contented Disposition. Some trouble, indeed, must I have with that luckless Mistress Prue, the Waiting-Maid—sure, I did the girl no Harm, beyond whispering a little soft nonsense in her ear now and then. But she must needs have a succession of Hysterical Fits after my departure from the Tower, and write me many scores of Letters couched in the most Lamentable Rigmarole, threatening to throw herself into Rosamond's Pond in St. James's Park (then a favourite Drowning-Place for Disconsolate Lovers), with many other nonsensical Menaces. But I was firm to my Determination to do her no harm, and therefore carefully abstained from answering any of her letters. She did not break her heart; but (being resolved to wed one that wore the King's cloth) she married Miles Bandolier about three months after my Departure, and broke his head, ere the Honeymoon was over, with a Bed-staff. A most frivolous Quean this, and I well rid of her. Coming out of the Tower, I took lodgings for a season in Great Ryder Street, St. James's, and set up for a Person of Pleasure. There were many Military Officers of my Acquaintance who honoured me with their company over a Bottle, for even as a Tower Warder I had been a kind of a Gentleman, and there was no treating me as one of base Degree. They laughed somewhat at my Brevet rank of Captain, and sometimes twitted me as to what Regiment I was in; but I let them laugh, so long as they did not go too far, when I would…