text:  His first impulse was to laugh at the curious figure before him; but when demands for his name and threats of unknown penalties were thundered forth upon him with no pause for a reply then he began to think that he had made a mistake in opening the door at all--that he might get Leicester into a scrape if not himself--and as his person was as unknown to Mr Perkins as that gentleman's to him it struck him that if he could give him the slip once it would be all right