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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Lunatic at Large
+
+Author: J. Storer Clouston
+
+Release Date: January 30, 2007 [Ebook #20485]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUNATIC AT LARGE***
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                            LUNATIC AT LARGE
+
+                                _A NOVEL_
+
+                                   BY
+                           J. STORER CLOUSTON
+
+AUTHORIZED EDITION
+
+BRENTANO'S
+NEW YORK
+1915
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+PART I.
+   CHAPTER I.
+   CHAPTER II.
+   CHAPTER III.
+   CHAPTER IV.
+   CHAPTER V.
+   CHAPTER VI.
+   CHAPTER VII.
+PART II.
+   CHAPTER I.
+   CHAPTER II.
+   CHAPTER III.
+   CHAPTER IV.
+   CHAPTER V.
+   CHAPTER VI.
+   CHAPTER VII.
+   CHAPTER VIII.
+   CHAPTER IX.
+PART III.
+   CHAPTER I.
+   CHAPTER II.
+   CHAPTER III.
+   CHAPTER IV.
+   CHAPTER V.
+   CHAPTER VI.
+   CHAPTER VII.
+PART IV.
+   CHAPTER I.
+   CHAPTER II.
+   CHAPTER III.
+   CHAPTER IV.
+   CHAPTER V.
+ERRATA.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          THE LUNATIC AT LARGE.
+
+
+                              INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+Into the history of Mr Francis Beveridge, as supplied by the obliging
+candour of the Baron von Blitzenberg and the notes of Dr Escott, Dr
+Twiddel and his friend Robert Welsh make a kind of explanatory entry. They
+most effectually set the ball a-rolling, and so the story starts in a
+small room looking out on a very uninteresting London street.
+
+It was about three o'clock on a November afternoon, that season of fogs
+and rains and mud, when towns-people long for fresh air and hillsides, and
+country-folk think wistfully of the warmth and lights of a city, when
+nobody is satisfied, and everybody has a cold. Outside the window of the
+room there were a few feet of earth adorned with a low bush or two, a line
+of railings, a stone-paved street, and on the other side a long row of
+uniform yellow brick houses. The apartment itself was a modest chamber,
+containing a minimum of rented furniture and a flickering gas-stove. By a
+small caseful of medical treatises and a conspicuous stethoscope, the
+least experienced could see that it was labelled consulting-room.
+
+Dr Twiddel was enjoying one of those moments of repose that occur even in
+the youngest practitioner's existence. For the purposes of this narrative
+he may briefly be described as an amiable-looking young man, with a little
+bit of fair moustache and still less chin, no practice to speak of, and a
+considerable quantity of unpaid bills. A man of such features and in such
+circumstances invites temptation. At the present moment, though his
+waistcoat was unbuttoned and his feet rested on the mantelpiece, his mind
+seemed not quite at ease. He looked back upon a number of fortunate events
+that had not occurred, and forward to various unpleasant things that might
+occur, and then he took a letter from his pocket and read it abstractedly.
+
+"I can't afford to refuse," he reflected, lugubriously; "and yet, hang it!
+I must say I don't fancy the job."
+
+When metal is molten it can be poured into any vessel; and at that moment
+a certain deep receptacle stood on the very doorstep.
+
+The doctor heard the bell, sat up briskly, stuffed the letter back into
+his pocket, and buttoned his waistcoat.
+
+"A patient at last!" and instantly there arose a vision of a simple
+operation, a fabulous fee, and twelve sickly millionaires an hour ever
+after. The door opened, and a loud voice hailed him familiarly.
+
+"Only Welsh," he sighed, and the vision went the way of all the others.
+
+The gentleman who swaggered in and clapped the doctor on the back, who
+next threw himself into the easiest chair and his hat and coat over the
+table, was in fact Mr Robert Welsh. From the moment he entered he pervaded
+the room; the stethoscope seemed to grow less conspicuous, Dr Twiddel's
+chin more diminutive, the apartment itself a mere background to this
+guest. Why? It would be hard to say precisely. He was a black-moustached,
+full-faced man, with an air of the most consummate assurance, and a person
+by some deemed handsome. Yet somehow or other he inevitably recalled the
+uncles of history. Perhaps this assurance alone gave him his atmosphere.
+You could have felt his egotism in the dark.
+
+He talked in a loud voice and with a great air of mastery over all the
+contingencies of a life about town. You felt that here sat one who had
+seen the world and gave things their proper proportions, who had learned
+how meretricious was orthodoxy, and which bars could really be
+recommended. He chaffed, patronised, and cheered the doctor. Patients had
+been scarce, had they? Well, after all, there were many consolations. Did
+Twiddle say he was hard up? Welsh himself in an even more evil case. He
+narrated various unfortunate transactions connected with the turf and
+other pursuits, with regret, no doubt, and yet with a fine rakish defiance
+of destiny. Twiddel's face cleared, and he began to show something of the
+same gallant spirit. He brought out a tall bottle with a Celtic
+superscription; Welsh half filled his glass, poured in some water from a
+dusty decanter, and proposed the toast of "Luck to the two most deserving
+sinners in London!"
+
+The doctor was fired, he drew the same letter from his pocket, and cried,
+"By Jove, Welsh, I'd almost forgotten to tell you of a lucky offer that
+came this morning."
+
+This was not strictly true, for as a matter of fact the doctor had only
+hesitated to tell of this offer lest he should be shamed to a decision.
+But Welsh was infectious.
+
+"Congratulations, old man!" said his friend. "What's it all about?"
+
+"Here's a letter from an old friend of my people's--Dr Watson, by name. He
+has a very good country practice, and he offers me this job."
+
+He handed the letter to Welsh, and then added, with a flutter of caution,
+"I haven't made up my mind yet. There are drawbacks, as you'll see."
+
+Welsh opened the letter and read:--
+
+"DEAR TWIDDEL,--I am happy to tell you that I am at last able to put
+something in your way. A gentleman in this neighbourhood, one of my most
+esteemed patients, has lately suffered from a severe mental and physical
+shock, followed by brain fever, and is still, I regret to say, in an
+extremely unstable mental condition. I have strongly recommended quiet and
+change of scene, and at my suggestion he is to be sent abroad under the
+care of a medical attendant. I have now much pleasure in offering you the
+post, if you would care to accept it. You will find your patient, Mr
+Mandell-Essington, an extremely agreeable young man when in possession of
+his proper faculties. He has large means and no near relatives; he comes
+of one of the best families in the county; and though he has, I surmise,
+sown his wild oats pretty freely, he was considered of unusual promise
+previous to this unfortunate illness. He is of an amiable and pleasant
+disposition, though at present, we fear, inclined to suicidal tendencies.
+I have no particular reason to think he is at all homicidal; still, you
+will see that he naturally requires most careful watching. It is possible
+that you may hesitate to leave your practice (which I trust prospers); but
+as the responsibility is considerable, the fee will be proportionately
+generous--£500, and all expenses paid."
+
+("Five hundred quid!" exclaimed Welsh.)
+
+"I would suggest a trip on the Continent. The duration and the places to
+be visited will be entirely at your discretion. It is of course hardly
+necessary to say that you will seek quiet localities. Trusting to hear
+from you at your very earliest convenience, believe me, yours sincerely,
+
+                                                          TIMOTHY WATSON."
+
+Welsh looked at his friend with the respect that prosperity naturally
+excites. He smiled on him as an equal, and cried, heartily,
+"Congratulations again! When do you start?"
+
+Twiddel fidgeted uncomfortably, "I--er--well, you see--ah--I haven't _quite_
+made up my mind yet."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Hang it, Welsh--er--the fact is I don't altogether like the job."
+
+Scruples of any kind always surprised Welsh.
+
+"Can't afford to leave the practice?" he asked with a laugh.
+
+"That's--ah--partly the reason," replied Twiddel, uncomfortably.
+
+"Rot, old man! There's a girl in the case. Out with it!"
+
+"No, it isn't that. You see it's the very devil of a responsibility."
+
+At this confession of weakness he looked guiltily at his heroic friend.
+From the bottom of his heart he wished he had screwed up his courage in
+private. Welsh had so little imagination.
+
+"By Gad," exclaimed Welsh, "I'd manage a nunnery for £500!"
+
+"I daresay you would, but a suicidal, and possibly homicidal, lunatic
+isn't a nunnery."
+
+Welsh looked at his friend with diminished respect.
+
+"Then you are going to chuck up £500 and a free trip on the Continent?" he
+said.
+
+"Dr Watson himself admits the responsibility."
+
+"With a--what is it?--agreeable young man?"
+
+"Only when in possession of his proper faculties," said the doctor,
+dismally.
+
+"And an amiable disposition?"
+
+"With suicidal tendencies, hang it!"
+
+"I should have thought," said Welsh, with a laugh, "that they would only
+matter to himself."
+
+"But he is homicidal too--or at least it's doubtful. I want to know a
+little more about that, thank you!"
+
+"What is the man's name?"
+
+"Mandell-Essington."
+
+"Sounds aristocratic. He might come in useful afterwards, when he's
+cured."
+
+Welsh spoke with an air of reflection, which might have been entirely
+disinterested.
+
+"He'd probably commit suicide first," said Twiddel, "and of course I'd get
+all the blame."
+
+"Or homicide," replied Welsh, "When _he_ would."
+
+"No, he wouldn't--that's the worst of it; I'd be blamed for having my own
+throat cut."
+
+"Twiddel," said his friend, deliberately, "it seems to me you're a fool."
+
+"I'm at least alive," cried Twiddel, warming with sympathy for himself,
+"which I probably wouldn't be for long in Mr Essington's company."
+
+"I don't blame your nerves, dear boy," said Welsh, with a smile that
+showed all his teeth, "only your head. Here are £500 going a-begging.
+There must be some way----" He paused, deep in reflection. "How would it
+do," he remarked in a minute, "if _I_ were to go in your place?"
+
+Twiddel laughed and shook his head.
+
+"Couldn't be managed?"
+
+"Couldn't possibly, I'm afraid."
+
+"No," said Welsh. "I foresee difficulties."
+
+He fished a pipe out of his pocket, filled and lit it, and leaned back in
+his chair gazing at the ceiling.
+
+"Twiddel, my boy," he said at length, "will you give me a percentage of
+the fee if I think of a safe dodge for getting the money and preserving
+your throat?"
+
+Twiddel laughed.
+
+"Rather!" he said.
+
+"I am perfectly serious," replied Welsh, keenly. "I'm certain the thing is
+quite possible."
+
+He half closed his eyes and ruminated in silence. The doctor watched
+him--fascinated, afraid. Somehow or other he felt that he was already a
+kind of Guy Fawkes. There was something so unlawful in Welsh's expression.
+
+They sat there without speaking for about ten minutes, and then all of a
+sudden Welsh sprang up with a shout of laughter, slapping first his own
+leg and then the doctor's back.
+
+"By Gad, I've got it!" he cried. "I have it!"
+
+And he had; hence this tale.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART I.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I.
+
+
+In a certain fertile and well-wooded county of England there stands a high
+stone wall. On a sunny day the eye of the traveller passing through this
+province is gratified by the sparkle of myriads of broken bottles arranged
+closely and continuously along its coping-stone. Above these shining
+facets the boughs of tall trees swing in the wind and throw their shadows
+across the highway. The wall at last leaves the road and follows the park
+round its entire extent. Its height never varies; the broken bottles
+glitter perpetually; and only through two entrances, and that when the
+gates are open, can one gain a single glimpse inside: for the gates are
+solid, with no chinks for the curious.
+
+The country all round is undulating, and here and there from the crest of
+an eminence you can see a great space of well-timbered park land within
+this wall; and in winter, when the leaves are off the trees, you may spy
+an imposing red-brick mansion in the midst.
+
+Any native will inform you, with a mixture of infectious awe and becoming
+pride, that this is no less than the far-famed private asylum of
+Clankwood.
+
+This ideal institution bore the enviable reputation of containing the
+best-bred lunatics in England. It was credibly reported that however well
+marked their symptoms and however well developed their delusions, none but
+ladies and gentlemen of the most unblemished descent were permitted to
+enjoy its seclusion. The dances there were universally considered the most
+agreeable functions in the county. The conversation of many of the inmates
+was of the widest range and the most refreshing originality, and the
+demeanour of all, even when most free from the conventional trammels of
+outside society, bore evidence of an expensive, and in some cases of a
+Christian, upbringing. This is scarcely to be wondered at, when beneath
+one roof were assembled the heirs-presumptive to three dukedoms, two
+suicidal marquises, an odd archbishop or so, and the flower of the
+baronetage and clergy. As this list only includes a few of the celebrities
+able or willing to be introduced to distinguished visitors, and makes no
+mention of the uncorroborated dignities (such as the classical divinities
+and Old Testament duplicates), the anxiety shown by some people to certify
+their relations can easily be understood.
+
+Dr Congleton, the proprietor and physician of Clankwood, was a gentleman
+singularly well fitted to act as host on the occasion of asylum reunions.
+No one could exceed him in the respect he showed to a coroneted head, even
+when cracked; and a bishop under his charge was always secured, as far as
+possible, from the least whisper of heretical conversation. He possessed
+besides a pleasant rubicund countenance and an immaculate wardrobe. He was
+further fortunate in having in his assistants, Dr Escott and Dr Sherlaw,
+two young gentlemen whose medical knowledge was almost equal to the
+affability of their manners and the excellence of their family
+connections.
+
+One November night these two were sitting over a comfortable fire in
+Sherlaw's room. Twelve o'clock struck, Escott finished the remains of
+something in a tumbler, rose, and yawned sleepily.
+
+"Time to turn in, young man," said he.
+
+"I suppose it is," replied Sherlaw, a very pleasant and boyish young
+gentleman. "Hullo! What's that? A cab?"
+
+They both listened, and some way off they could just pick out a sound like
+wheels upon gravel.
+
+"It's very late for any one to be coming in," said Escott.
+
+The sound grew clearer and more unmistakably like a cab rattling quickly
+up the drive.
+
+"It is a cab," said Sherlaw.
+
+They heard it draw up before the front door, and then there came a pause.
+
+"Who the deuce can it be?" muttered Escott.
+
+In a few minutes there came a knock at the door, and a servant entered.
+
+"A new case, sir. Want's to see Dr Congleton particular."
+
+"A man or a woman?"
+
+"Man, sir."
+
+"All right," growled Sherlaw. "I'll come, confound him."
+
+"Bad luck, old man," laughed Escott. "I'll wait here in case by any chance
+you want me."
+
+He fell into his chair again, lit a cigarette, and sleepily turned over
+the pages of a book. Dr Sherlaw was away for a little time, and when he
+returned his cheerful face wore a somewhat mystified expression.
+
+"Well?" asked Escott.
+
+"Rather a rum case," said his colleague, thoughtfully.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Don't know."
+
+"Who was it?"
+
+"Don't know that either."
+
+Escott opened his eyes.
+
+"What happened, then?"
+
+"Well," said Sherlaw, drawing his chair up to the fire again, "I'll tell
+you just what did happen, and you can make what you can out of it. Of
+course, I suppose it's all right, really, but--well, the proceedings were a
+little unusual, don't you know.
+
+"I went down to the door, and there I found a four-wheeler with a man
+standing beside it. The door of the cab was shut, and there seemed to be
+two more men inside. This chap who'd got out--a youngish man--hailed me at
+once as though he'd bought the whole place.
+
+" 'You Dr Congleton?'
+
+" 'Damn your impertinence!' I said to myself, 'ringing people up at this
+hour, and talking like a bally drill-sergeant.'
+
+"I told him politely I wasn't old Congers, but that I'd make a good enough
+substitute for the likes of him.
+
+" 'I tell you what it is,' said the Johnnie, 'I've brought a patient for
+Dr Congleton, a cousin of mine, and I've got a doctor here, too. I want to
+see Dr Congleton.'
+
+" 'He's probably in bed,' I said, 'but I'll do just as well. I suppose
+he's certified, and all that.'
+
+" 'Oh, it's all right,' said the man, rather as though he expected me to
+say that it wasn't. He looked a little doubtful what to do, and then I
+heard some one inside the cab call him. He stuck his head in the window
+and they confabbed for a minute, and then he turned to me and said, with
+the most magnificent air you ever saw, like a chap buying a set of diamond
+studs, 'My friend here is a great personal friend of Dr Congleton, and
+it's a damned---- I mean it's an uncommonly delicate matter. We must see
+him.'
+
+" 'Well, if you insist, I'll see if I can get him,' I said; 'but you'd
+better come in and wait.'
+
+"So the Johnnie opened the door of the cab, and there was a great hauling
+and pushing, my friend pulling an arm from the outside, and the doctor
+shoving from within, and at last they fetched out their patient. He was a
+tall man, in a very smart-looking, long, light top-coat, and a cap with a
+large peak shoved over his eyes, and he seemed very unsteady on his pins.
+
+" 'Drunk, by George!' I said to myself at first.
+
+"The doctor--another young-looking man--hopped out after him, and they each
+took an arm, lugged their patient into the waiting-room, and popped him
+into an armchair. There he collapsed, and sat with his head hanging down
+as limp as a sucked orange.
+
+"I asked them if anything was the matter with him.
+
+" 'Only tired,--just a little sleepy,' said the cousin.
+
+"And do you know, Escott, what I'd stake my best boots was the matter with
+him?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"The man was drugged!"
+
+Escott looked at the fire thoughtfully.
+
+"Well," he said, "it's quite possible; he might have been too violent to
+manage."
+
+"Why couldn't they have said so, then?"
+
+"H'm. Not knowing, can't say. What happened next?"
+
+"Next thing was, I asked the doctor what name I should give. He answered
+in a kind of nervous way, 'No name; you needn't give any name. I know Dr
+Congleton personally. Ask him to come, please.' So off I tooled, and found
+old Congers just thinking of turning in.
+
+" 'My clients are sometimes unnecessarily discreet', he remarked in his
+pompous way when I told him about the arrival, and of course he added his
+usual platitude about our reputation for discretion.
+
+"I went back with him to the waiting-room, and just stood at the door long
+enough to see him hail the doctor chap very cordially and be introduced to
+the patient's cousin, and then I came away. Rather rum, isn't it?"
+
+"You've certainly made the best of the yarn," said Escott with a laugh.
+
+"By George, if you'd been there you'd have thought it funny too."
+
+"Well, good-night, I'm off. We'll probably hear to-morrow what it's all
+about."
+
+But in the morning there was little more to be learned about the
+new-comer's history and antecedents. Dr Congleton spoke of the matter to
+the two young men, with the pompous cough that signified extreme
+discretion.
+
+"Brought by an old friend of mine," he said. "A curious story, Escott, but
+quite intelligible. There seem to be the best reasons for answering no
+questions about him; you understand?"
+
+"Certainly, sir," said the two assistants, with the more assurance as they
+had no information to give.
+
+"I am perfectly satisfied, mind you--perfectly satisfied," added their
+chief.
+
+"By the way, sir," Sherlaw ventured to remark, "hadn't they given him
+something in the way of a sleeping-draught?"
+
+"Eh? Indeed? I hardly think so, Sherlaw, I hardly think so. Case of
+reaction entirely. Good morning."
+
+"Congleton seems satisfied," remarked Escott.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said the junior, profoundly. "Old Congers is a very
+good chap, and all that, but he's not what I should call extra sharp. _I_
+should feel uncommon suspicious."
+
+"H'm," replied Escott. "As you say, our worthy chief is not extra sharp.
+But that's not our business, after all."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"By the way," said Escott, a couple of days later, "how is your mysterious
+man getting on? I haven't seen him myself yet."
+
+Sherlaw laughed.
+
+"He's turning out a regular sportsman, by George! For the first day he was
+more or less in the same state in which he arrived. Then he began to wake
+up and ask questions. 'What the devil is this place?' he said to me in the
+evening. It may sound profane, but he was very polite, I assure you. I
+told him, and he sort of raised his eyebrows, smiled, and thanked me like
+a Prime Minister acknowledging an obligation. Since then he has steadily
+developed sporting, not to say frisky, tastes. He went out this morning,
+and in five minutes had his arm round one of the prettiest nurses' waist.
+And she didn't seem to mind much either, by George!"
+
+"He'll want a bit of looking after, I take it."
+
+"Seems to me he is uncommonly capable of taking care of himself. The rest
+of the establishment will want looking after, though."
+
+From this time forth the mysterious gentleman began to regularly take the
+air and to be remarked, and having once remarked him, people looked again.
+
+Mr Francis Beveridge, for such it appeared was his name, was distinguished
+even for Clankwood. Though his antecedents were involved in mystery, so
+much confidence was placed in Dr Congleton's discrimination that the
+unknown stranger was at once received on the most friendly terms by every
+one; and, to tell the truth, it would have been hard to repulse him for
+long. His manner was perfect, his conversation witty to the extremest
+verge of propriety, and his clothes, fashionable in cut and of
+unquestionable fit, bore on such of the buttons as were made of metal the
+hall mark of a leading London firm. He wore the longest and most silky
+moustaches ever seen, and beneath them a short well-tended beard completed
+his resemblance--so the ladies declared--to King Charles of unhappy memory.
+The melancholic Mr Jones (quondam author of 'Sunflowers--A Lyrical Medley')
+declared, indeed, that for Mr Beveridge shaving was prohibited, and darkly
+whispered "suicidal," but his opinion was held of little account.
+
+It was upon a morning about a week after his arrival that Dr Escott, alone
+in the billiard-room, saw him enter. Escott had by this time made his
+acquaintance, and, like almost everybody else, had already succumbed to
+the fascination of his address.
+
+"Good morning, doctor," he said; "I wish you to do me a trifling favour, a
+mere bending of your eyes."
+
+Escott laughed.
+
+"I shall be delighted. What is it?"
+
+Mr Beveridge unbuttoned his waistcoat and displayed his shirt-front.
+
+"I only want you to be good enough to read the inscription written here."
+
+The doctor bent down.
+
+" 'Francis Beveridge,' " he said. "That's all I see."
+
+"And that's all I see," said Mr Beveridge. "Now what can you read here? I
+am not troubling you?"
+
+He held out his handkerchief as he spoke.
+
+"Not a bit," laughed the doctor, "but I only see 'Francis Beveridge' here
+too, I'm afraid."
+
+"Everything has got it," said Mr Beveridge, shaking his head, it would be
+hard to say whether humorously or sadly. " 'Francis Beveridge' on
+everything. It follows, I suppose, that I am Francis Beveridge?"
+
+"What else?" asked Escott, who was much amused.
+
+"That's just it. What else?" said the other. He smiled a peculiarly
+charming smile, thanked the doctor with exaggerated gratitude, and
+strolled out again.
+
+"He is a rum chap," reflected Escott.
+
+And indeed in the outside world he might safely have been termed rather
+rum, but here in this backwater, so full of the oddest flotsam, his
+waywardness was rather less than the average. He had, for instance, a
+diverting habit of modifying the time, and even the tune, of the hymns on
+Sunday, and he confessed to having kissed all the nurses and housemaids
+except three. But both Escott and Sherlaw declared they had never met a
+more congenial spirit. Mr Beveridge's game of billiards was quite
+remarkable even for Clankwood, where the enforced leisure of many of the
+noblemen and gentlemen had made them highly proficient on the spot; he
+showed every promise, on his rare opportunities, of being an unusually
+entertaining small hour, whisky-and-soda _raconteur_; in fact, he was
+evidently a man whose previous career, whatever it might have been (and
+his own statements merely served to increase the mystery round this
+point), had led him through many humorous by-paths, and left him with few
+restrictive prejudices.
+
+November became December, and to all appearances he had settled down in
+his new residence with complete resignation, when that unknowable factor
+that upsets so many calculations came upon the scene,--the factor, I mean,
+that wears a petticoat.
+
+Mr Beveridge strolled into Escott's room one morning to find the doctor
+inspecting a mixed assortment of white kid gloves.
+
+"Do these mean past or future conquests?" he asked with his smile.
+
+"Both," laughed the doctor. "I'm trying to pick out a clean pair for the
+dance to-night."
+
+"You go a-dancing, then?"
+
+"Don't you know it's our own monthly ball here?"
+
+"Of course," said Mr Beveridge, passing his hand quickly across his brow.
+"I must have heard, but things pass so quickly through my head nowadays."
+
+He laughed a little conventional laugh, and gazed at the gloves.
+
+"You are coming, of course?" said Escott.
+
+"If you can lend me a pair of these. Can you spare one?"
+
+"Help yourself," replied the doctor.
+
+Mr Beveridge selected a pair with the care of a man who is particular in
+such matters, put them in his pocket, thanked the doctor, and went out.
+
+"Hope he doesn't play the fool," thought Escott.
+
+Invitations to the balls at Clankwood were naturally in great demand
+throughout the county, for nowhere were noblemen so numerous and
+divinities so tangible. Carriages and pairs rolled up one after another,
+the mansion glittered with lights, the strains of the band could be heard
+loud and stirring or low and faintly all through the house.
+
+"Who is that man dancing opposite my daughter?" asked the Countess of
+Grillyer.
+
+"A Mr Beveridge," replied Dr Congleton.
+
+Mr Beveridge, in fact, the mark of all eyes, was dancing in a set of
+lancers. The couple opposite to him consisted of a stout elderly gentleman
+who, doubtless for the best reasons, styled himself the Emperor of the two
+Americas, and a charming little pink and flaxen partner--the Lady Alicia à
+Fyre, as everybody who was anybody could have told you. The handsome
+stranger moved, as might be expected, with his accustomed grace and air of
+distinction, and, probably to convince his admirers that there was nothing
+meretricious in his performance, he carried his hands in his pockets the
+whole time. This certainly caused a little inconvenience to his partner,
+but to be characteristic in Clankwood one had to step very far out of the
+beaten track.
+
+For two figures the Emperor snorted disapproval, but at the end of the
+third, when Mr Beveridge had been skipping round the outskirts of the set,
+his hands still thrust out of sight, somewhat to the derangement of the
+customary procedure, he could contain himself no longer.
+
+"Hey, young man!" he asked in his most stentorian voice, as the music
+ceased, "are you afraid of having your pockets picked?"
+
+"Alas!" replied Mr Beveridge, "it would take two men to do that."
+
+"Huh!" snorted the Emperor, "you are so d--d strong, are you?"
+
+"I mean," answered his _vis-à-vis_ with his polite smile, "that it would
+take one man to put something in and another to take it out."
+
+This remark not only turned the laugh entirely on Mr Beveridge's side, but
+it introduced the upsetting factor.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+
+
+The Lady Alicia à Fyre, though of the outer everyday world herself, had,
+in common with most families of any pretensions to ancient dignity, a
+creditable sprinkling of uncles and cousins domiciled in Clankwood, and so
+she frequently attended these dances.
+
+To-night her eye had been caught by a tall, graceful figure executing a
+_pas seul_ in the middle of the room with its hands in its pockets. The
+face of this gentleman was so composed and handsome, and he seemed so
+oblivious to the presence of everybody else, that her interest was
+immediately excited. During the set of lancers in which he was her
+_vis-à-vis_ she watched him furtively with a growing feeling of
+admiration. She had never heard him say a word, and it was with a
+sensation of the liveliest interest that she listened to his brief passage
+with her partner. At his final retort her tender heart was overcome with
+pity. He was poor, then, or at least he was allowed the use of no money.
+And all of him that was outside his pockets seemed so sane and so
+gentlemanly; it seemed a pity to let him lack a little sympathy.
+
+The Lady Alicia might be described as a becoming frock stuffed with
+sentiment. Through a pair of large blue eyes she drank in romance, and
+with the reddest and most undecided of lips she felt a vague desire to
+kiss something. At the end of the dance she managed by a series of little
+manoeuvres to find herself standing close to his elbow. She sighed twice,
+but he still seemed absorbed in his thoughts. Then with a heroic effort
+she summed up her courage, and said in a low and rather shaky voice,
+"You--you--you are unha--appy."
+
+Mr Beveridge turned and looked down on her with great interest. Her eyes
+met his for a moment and straightway sought the floor. Thus she saw
+nothing of a smile that came and went like the shadow of a puff of smoke.
+He took his hands out of his pockets, folded his arms, and, with an air of
+the deepest dejection, sighed heavily. She took courage and looked up
+again, and then, as he only gazed into space in the most romantically
+melancholy fashion and made no answer, she asked again very timidly,
+"Wh--what is the matter?"
+
+Without saying a word Mr Beveridge bent courteously and offered her his
+right arm. She took it with the most delicious trepidation, glancing round
+hurriedly to see whether the Countess noticed her. Another dance was just
+beginning, and in the general movement her mysterious acquaintance led her
+without observation to a seat in the window of a corridor. There he
+pressed her hand gently, stroked his long moustaches for a minute, and
+then said, with an air of reflection: "There are three ways of making a
+woman like one. I am slightly out of practice. Would you be kind enough to
+suggest a method of procedure?"
+
+Such a beginning was so wholly unexpected that Lady Alicia could only give
+a little gasp of consternation. Her companion, after pausing an instant
+for a reply, went on in the same tone, "I am aware that I have begun well.
+I attracted your attention, I elicited your sympathy, and I pressed your
+hand; but for the life of me I can't remember what I generally do next."
+
+Poor Lady Alicia, who had come with a bucketful of sympathy ready to be
+gulped down by this unfortunate gentleman, was only able to stammer, "I--I
+really don't know, Mr----"
+
+"Hamilton," said Mr Beveridge, unblushingly. "At least that name belongs
+to me as much as anything can be said to in a world where my creditors
+claim my money and Dr Congleton my person."
+
+"You are confined and poor, you mean?" asked Lady Alicia, beginning to see
+her way again.
+
+"Poor and confined, to put them in their proper order, for if I had the
+wherewithal to purchase a balloon I should certainly cease to be
+confined."
+
+His admirer found it hard to reply adequately to this, and Mr Beveridge
+continued, "To return to the delicate subject from which we strayed, what
+would you like me to do,--put my arm round your waist, relate my troubles,
+or turn my back on you?"
+
+"Are--are those the three ways you spoke of--to make women like you, I
+mean?" Lady Alicia ventured to ask, though she was beginning to wish the
+sofa was larger.
+
+"They are examples of the three classical methods: cuddling, humbugging,
+and piquing. Which do you prefer?"
+
+"Tell me about your--your troubles," she answered, gaining courage a
+little.
+
+"You belong to the sex which makes no mention of figs and spades," he
+rejoined; "but I understand you to mean that you prefer humbugging."
+
+He drew a long face, sighed twice, and looking tenderly into Lady Alicia's
+blue eyes, began in a gentle, reminiscent voice, "My boyhood was troubled
+and unhappy: no kind words, no caresses. I was beaten by a cruel
+stepfather, ignored and insulted for my physical deformities by a
+heartless stepmother."
+
+He stopped to sigh again, and Lady Alicia, with a boldness that surprised
+herself, and a perspicacity that would have surprised her friends, asked,
+"How could they--I mean, were they _both_ step?"
+
+"Several steps," he replied; "in fact, quite a long journey."
+
+With this explanation Lady Alicia was forced to remain satisfied; but as
+he had paused a second time, and seemed to be immersed in the study of his
+shoes, she inquired again, "You spoke of physical infirmities; do you
+mean----?"
+
+"Deformities," he corrected; "up to the age of fourteen years I could only
+walk sideways, and my hair parted in the middle."
+
+He spoke so seriously that these unusual maladies seemed to her the most
+touching misfortunes she had ever heard of. She murmured gently, "Yes?"
+
+"As the years advanced," Mr Beveridge continued, "and I became more nearly
+the same weight as my stepfather, my life grew happier. It was decided to
+send me to college, so I was provided with an insufficient cheque, a
+complete set of plated forks, and three bath-towels, and despatched to the
+University of Oxford. At least I think that was the name of the
+corporation which took my money and endeavoured to restrict my habits,
+though, to confess the truth, my memory is not what it used to be. There I
+learned wisdom by the practice of folly--the most amusing and effective
+method. My tutor used to tell me I had some originality. I apologised for
+its presence in such a respectable institution, and undertook to pass an
+examination instead. I believe I succeeded: I certainly remember giving a
+dinner to celebrate something. Thereupon at my own expense the University
+inflicted a degree upon me, but I was shortly afterwards compensated by
+the death of my uncle and my accession to his estates. Having enjoyed a
+university education, and accordingly possessing a corrected and regulated
+sentiment, I was naturally inconsolable at the decease of this venerable
+relative, who for so long had shown a kindly interest in the poor orphan
+lad."
+
+He stopped to sigh again, and Lady Alicia asked with great interest, "But
+your step-parents, you always had them, hadn't you?"
+
+"Never!" he replied, sadly.
+
+"Never?" she exclaimed in some bewilderment.
+
+"Certainly not often," he answered, "and oftener than not, never. If you
+had told me beforehand you wished to hear my history, I should have pruned
+my family tree into a more presentable shape. But if you will kindly tell
+me as I go along which of my relatives you disapprove of, and who you
+would like to be introduced, I shall arrange the plot to suit you."
+
+"I only wish to hear the true story, Mr Hamilton."
+
+"Fortescue," he corrected. "I certainly prefer to be called by one name at
+a time, but never by the same twice running."
+
+He smiled so agreeably as he said this that Lady Alicia, though puzzled
+and a little hurt, could not refrain from smiling back.
+
+"Let me hear the rest," she said.
+
+"It is no truer than the first part, but quite as entertaining. So, if you
+like, I shall endeavour to recall the series of painful episodes that
+brought me to Clankwood," he answered, very seriously.
+
+Lady Alicia settled herself comfortably into one corner of the sofa and
+prepared to feel affected. But at that moment the portly form of Dr
+Congleton appeared from the direction of the ballroom with a still more
+portly dowager on his arm.
+
+"My mother!" exclaimed Lady Alicia, rising quickly to her feet.
+
+"Indeed?" said Mr Beveridge, who still kept his seat. "She certainly looks
+handsome enough."
+
+This speech made Lady Alicia blush very becomingly, and the Countess
+looked at her sharply.
+
+"Where have you been, Alicia?"
+
+"The room was rather warm, mamma, and----"
+
+"In short, madam," interrupted Mr Beveridge, rising and bowing, "your
+charming daughter wished to study a lunatic at close quarters. I am mad,
+and I obligingly raved. Thus----" He ran one hand through his hair so as to
+make it fall over his eyes, blew out his cheeks, and uttering a yell,
+sprang high into the air, and descended in a sitting posture on the floor.
+
+"That, madam, is a very common symptom," he explained, with a smile,
+smoothing down his hair again, "as our friend Dr Congleton will tell you."
+
+Both the doctor and the Countess were too astonished to make any reply, so
+he turned again to Lady Alicia, and offering his arm, said, "Let me lead
+you back to our fellow-fools."
+
+"Is he safe?" whispered the Countess.
+
+"I--I believe so," replied Dr Congleton in some confusion; "but I shall
+have him watched more carefully."
+
+As they entered the room Mr Beveridge whispered, "Will you meet a poor
+lunatic again?" And the Lady Alicia pressed his arm.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+On the morning after the dance Dr Congleton summoned Dr Escott to his
+room.
+
+"Escott," he began, "we must keep a little sharper eye on Mr Beveridge."
+
+"Indeed, sir?" said Escott; "he seems to me harmless enough."
+
+"Nevertheless, he must be watched. Lady Grillyer was considerably alarmed
+by his conduct last night, and a client who has confided so many of her
+relatives to my care must be treated with the greatest regard. I receive
+pheasants at Christmas from no fewer than fourteen families of title, and
+my reputation for discretion is too valuable to be risked. When Mr
+Beveridge is not under your own eyes you must see that Moggridge always
+keeps him in sight."
+
+Accordingly Moggridge, a burly and seasoned attendant on refractory
+patients, was told off to keep an unobtrusive eye on that accomplished
+gentleman. His duties appeared light enough, for, as I have said, Mr
+Beveridge's eccentricities had hitherto been merely of the most playful
+nature.
+
+After luncheon on this same day he gave Escott twelve breaks and a beating
+at billiards, and then having borrowed and approved of one of his cigars,
+he strolled into the park. If he intended to escape observation, he
+certainly showed the most skilful strategy, for he dodged deviously
+through the largest trees, and at last, after a roundabout ramble, struck
+a sheltered walk that ran underneath the high, glass-decked outer wall. It
+was a sunny winter afternoon. The boughs were stripped, and the leaves lay
+littered on the walk or flickered and stirred through the grass. In this
+spot the high trees stood so close and the bare branches were so thick
+that there was still an air of quiet and seclusion where he paced and
+smoked. Every now and then he stopped and listened and looked at his
+watch, and as he walked backwards and forwards an amused smile would come
+and go.
+
+All at once he heard something move on the far side of the wall: he paused
+to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a
+moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up
+a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller note tied to the
+stems.
+
+"An uncommonly happy idea," he said to himself, looking at the missive
+with the air of one versed in these matters. Then he leisurely proceeded
+to unfold and read the note.
+
+"To my friend," he read, "if I may call you a friend, since I have known
+you only _such a short time_--may I? This is just to express my sympathy,
+and although I cannot express it well, still perhaps you will forgive my
+feeble effort!!"
+
+At this point, just as he was regarding the double mark of exclamation
+with reminiscent entertainment, a plaintive voice from the other side of
+the wall cried in a stage whisper, "Have you got it?"
+
+Mr Beveridge composed his face, and heaving his shoulders to his ears in
+the effort, gave vent to a prodigious sigh.
+
+"A million thanks, my fairest and kindest of friends," he answered in the
+same tone. "I read it now: I drink it in, I----"
+
+He kissed the back of his hand loudly two or three times, sighed again,
+and continued his reading.
+
+"I wish I could help you," it ran, "but I am afraid I cannot, as the world
+is _so censorious_, is it not? So you must accept a friend's sympathy if
+it does not seem to you too bold and forward of her!!! Perhaps we may meet
+again, as I sometimes go to Clankwood. _Au revoir._--Your sympathetic
+well-wisher. A. À. F."
+
+He folded it up and put it in his waistcoat-pocket, then he exclaimed in
+an audible aside, his voice shaking with the most affecting thrill,
+"_Perhaps_ we may meet again! Only _perhaps!_ O Alicia!" And then dropping
+again into a stage whisper, he asked, "Are you still there, Lady Alicia?"
+
+A timorous voice replied, "Yes, Mr Fortescue. But I really _must_ go now!"
+
+"Now? So soon?"
+
+"I have stayed too long already."
+
+"'Tis better to have stayed too long than never to wear stays at all,"
+replied Mr Beveridge.
+
+There was no response for a moment. Then a low voice, a little hurt and a
+good deal puzzled, asked with evident hesitation, "What--what did you say,
+Mr Fortescue?"
+
+"I said that Lady Alicia's stay cannot be too long," he answered, softly.
+
+"But--but what good can I be?"
+
+"The good you cannot help being."
+
+There was another moment's pause, then the voice whispered, "I don't quite
+understand you."
+
+"My Alicia understands me not!" Mr Beveridge soliloquised in another
+audible aside. Aloud, or rather in a little lower tone, he answered, "I am
+friendless, poor, and imprisoned. What is the good in your staying? Ah,
+Lady Alicia! But why should I detain you? Go, fair friend! Go and forget
+poor Francis Beveridge!"
+
+There came a soft, surprised answer, "Francis Beveridge?"
+
+"Alas! you have guessed my secret. Yes, that is the name of the unhappiest
+of mortals."
+
+As he spoke these melancholy words he threw away the stump of his cigar,
+took another from his case, and bit off the end.
+
+The voice replied, "I shall remember it--among my friends."
+
+Mr Beveridge struck a match.
+
+"H'sh! Whatever is that?" cried the voice in alarm.
+
+"A heart breaking," he replied, lighting his cigar.
+
+"Don't talk like that," said the voice. "It--it distresses me." There was a
+break in the voice.
+
+"And, alas! between distress and consolation there are fifteen
+perpendicular feet of stone and mortar and the relics of twelve hundred
+bottles of Bass," he replied.
+
+"Perhaps,"--the voice hesitated--"perhaps we may see each other some day."
+
+"Say to-morrow at four o'clock," he suggested, pertinently. "If you could
+manage to be passing up the drive at that hour."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"Perhaps----" the voice began.
+
+At that moment he heard the sharp crack of a branch behind him, and
+turning instantly he spied the uncompromising countenance of Moggridge
+peering round a tree about twenty paces distant. Lack of presence of mind
+and quick decision were not amongst Mr Beveridge's failings. He struck a
+theatrical attitude at once, and began in a loud voice, gazing up at the
+tops of the trees, "He comes! A stranger comes! Yes, my fair friend, we
+may meet again. _Au revoir_, but only for a while! Ah, that a breaking
+heart should be lit for a moment and then the lamp be put out!"
+
+Meanwhile Moggridge was walking towards him.
+
+"Ha, Moggridge!" he cried. "Good day."
+
+"Time you was goin' in, sir," said Moggridge, stolidly; and to himself he
+muttered, "He's crackeder than I thought, a-shoutin' and a-ravin' to
+hisself. Just as well I kept a heye on 'im."
+
+Like most clever people, Mr Beveridge generally followed the line of least
+resistance. He slipped his arm through his attendant's, shouted a farewell
+apparently to some imaginary divinity overhead, and turned towards the
+house.
+
+"This is an unexpected pleasure," he remarked.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Moggridge.
+
+"Funny thing your turning up. Out for a walk, I suppose?"
+
+"For a stroll, sir--that's to say----" he stopped.
+
+"That on these chilly afternoons the dear good doctor is afraid of my
+health?"
+
+"That's kind o' it, sir."
+
+"But of course I'm not supposed to notice anything, eh?"
+
+Moggridge looked a trifle uncomfortable and was discreetly silent. Mr
+Beveridge smiled at his own perspicacity, and then began in the most
+friendly tone, "Well, I feel flattered that so stout a man has been told
+off to take care of me. What an arm you've got, man."
+
+"Pretty fair, sir," said Moggridge, complacently.
+
+"And I am thankful, too," continued Mr Beveridge, "that you're a man of
+some sense. There are a lot of fools in the world, Moggridge, and I'm
+somewhat of an epicure in the matter of heads."
+
+"Mine 'as been considered pretty sharp," Moggridge admitted, with a
+gratified relaxation of his wooden countenance.
+
+"Have a cigar?" his patient asked, taking out his case.
+
+"Thank you, sir, I don't mind if I do."
+
+"You will find it a capital smoke. I don't throw them away on every one."
+
+Moggridge, completely thawed, lit his cigar and slackened his pace, for
+such frank appreciation of his merits was rare in a critical world.
+
+"You can perhaps believe, Moggridge," said Mr Beveridge, reflectively,
+"that one doesn't often have the chance of talking confidentially to a man
+of sense in Clankwood."
+
+"No, sir, I should himagine not."
+
+"And so one has sometimes to talk to oneself."
+
+This was said so sadly that Moggridge began to feel uncomfortably
+affected.
+
+"Ah, Moggridge, one cannot always keep silence, even when one least wants
+to be overheard. Have you ever been in love, Moggridge?"
+
+The burly keeper changed countenance a little at this embarrassingly
+direct question, and answered diffidently, "Well, sir, to be sure men is
+men and woming will be woming."
+
+"The deuce, they will!" replied Mr Beveridge, cordially; "and it's rather
+hard to forget 'em, eh?"
+
+"Hindeed it is, sir."
+
+"I remembered this afternoon, but I should like you as a good chap to
+forget. You won't mention my moment of weakness, Moggridge?"
+
+"No, sir," said Moggridge, stoutly. "I suppose I hought to report what I
+sees, but I won't this time."
+
+"Thank you," said Mr Beveridge, pressing his arm. "I had, you know, a
+touch of the sun in India, and I sometimes talk when I shouldn't. Though,
+after all, that isn't a very uncommon complaint."
+
+And so it happened that no rumour prejudicial either to his sanity or to
+the progress of his friendship with the Lady Alicia reached the ears of
+the authorities.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Towards four o'clock on the following afternoon Mr Beveridge and Moggridge
+were walking leisurely down the long drive leading from the mansion of
+Clankwood to the gate that opened on the humdrum outer world. Finding that
+an inelastic matter of yards was all the tether he could hope for, Mr
+Beveridge thought it best to take the bull by the horns, and make a
+companion of this necessity. So he kept his attendant by his side, and
+regaled him for some time with a series of improbable reminiscences and
+tolerable cigars, till at last, round a bend of the avenue, a lady on
+horseback came into view. As she drew a little nearer he stopped with an
+air of great surprise and pleasure.
+
+"I believe, Moggridge, that must be Lady Alicia à Fyre!" he exclaimed.
+
+"It looks huncommon like her, sir," replied Moggridge.
+
+"I must really speak to her. She was"--and Mr Beveridge assumed his
+inimitable air of manly sentiment--"she was one of my poor mother's dearest
+friends. Do you mind, Moggridge, falling behind a little? In fact, if you
+could step behind a tree and wait here for me, it would be pleasanter for
+us both. We used to meet under happier circumstances, and, don't you know,
+it might distress her to be reminded of my misfortunes."
+
+Such a reasonable request, beseechingly put by so fine a gentleman, could
+scarcely be refused. Moggridge retired behind the trees that lined the
+avenue, and Mr Beveridge advanced alone to meet the Lady Alicia. She
+blushed very becomingly as he raised his hat.
+
+"I hardly expected to see you to-day, Mr Beveridge," she began.
+
+"I, on the other hand, have been thinking of nothing else," he replied.
+
+She blushed still deeper, but responded a little reprovingly, "It's very
+polite of you to say so, but----"
+
+"Not a bit," said he. "I have a dozen equally well-turned sentences at my
+disposal, and, they tell me, a most deluding way of saying them."
+
+Suddenly out of her depth again, poor Lady Alicia could only strike out at
+random.
+
+"Who tell you?" she managed to say.
+
+"First, so far as my poor memory goes, my mother's lady's-maid informed me
+of the fact; then I think my sister's governess," he replied, ticking off
+his informants on his fingers with a half-abstracted air. "After that came
+a number of more or less reliable individuals, and lastly the Lady Alicia
+à Fyre."
+
+"Me? I'm sure I never said----"
+
+"None of them ever _said_," he interrupted.
+
+"But what have I done, then?" she asked, tightening her reins, and making
+her horse fidget a foot or two farther away.
+
+"You have begun to be a most adorable friend to a most unfortunate man."
+
+Still Lady Alicia looked at him a little dubiously, and only said, "I--I
+hope I'm not too friendly."
+
+"There are no degrees in friendly," he replied. "There are only aloofly,
+friendly, and more than friendly."
+
+"I--I think I ought to be going on, Mr Beveridge."
+
+That experienced diplomatist perceived that it was necessary to further
+embellish himself.
+
+"Are you fond of soldiers?" he asked, abruptly.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" she said in considerable bewilderment.
+
+"Does a red coat, a medal, and a brass band appeal to you? Are you apt to
+be interested in her Majesty's army?"
+
+"I generally like soldiers," she admitted, still much surprised at the
+turn the conversation had taken.
+
+"Then I was a soldier."
+
+"But--really?"
+
+"I held a commission in one of the crackest cavalry regiments," he began
+dramatically, and yet with a great air of sincerity. "I was considered one
+of the most promising officers in the mess. It nearly broke my heart to
+leave the service."
+
+He turned away his head. Lady Alicia was visibly affected.
+
+"I am so sorry!" she murmured.
+
+Still keeping his face turned away, he held out his hand and she pressed
+it gently.
+
+"Sorrow cannot give me my freedom," he said.
+
+"If there is anything I can do----" she began.
+
+"Dismount," he said, looking up at her tenderly.
+
+Lady Alicia never quite knew how it happened, but certainly she found
+herself standing on the ground, and the next moment Mr Beveridge was in
+her place.
+
+"An old soldier," he exclaimed, gaily; "I can't resist the temptation of
+having a canter." And with that he started at a gallop towards the gate.
+
+With a blasphemous ejaculation Moggridge sprang from behind his tree, and
+set off down the drive in hot pursuit.
+
+Lady Alicia screamed, "Stop! stop! Francis--I mean, Mr Beveridge; stop,
+please!"
+
+But the favorite of the crack regiment, despite the lady's saddle, sat his
+steed well, and rapidly left cries and footsteps far behind. The lodge was
+nearly half a mile away, and as the avenue wound between palisades of old
+trees, the shouts became muffled, and when he looked over his shoulder he
+saw in the stretch behind him no sign of benefactress or pursuer. By
+continued exhortations and the point of his penknife he kept his horse at
+full stretch; round the next bend he knew he should see the gates.
+
+"Five to one on the blank things being shut," he muttered.
+
+He swept round the curve, and there ahead of him he saw the gates grimly
+closed, and at the lodge door a dismounted groom, standing beside his
+horse.
+
+Only remarking "Damn!" he reined up, turned, and trotted quietly back
+again. Presently he met Moggridge, red in the face, muddy as to his
+trousers, and panting hard.
+
+"Nice little nag this, Moggridge," he remarked, airily.
+
+"Nice sweat you've give me," rejoined his attendant, wrathfully.
+
+"You don't mean to say you ran after me?"
+
+"I does mean to say," Moggridge replied grimly, seizing the reins.
+
+"Want to lead him? Very well--it makes us look quite like the Derby winner
+coming in."
+
+"Derby loser you means, thanks to them gates bein' shut."
+
+"Gates shut? Were they? I didn't happen to notice."
+
+"No, o' course not," said Moggridge, sarcastically; "that there sunstroke
+you got in India prevented you, I suppose?"
+
+"Have a cigar?"
+
+To this overture Moggridge made no reply. Mr Beveridge laughed and
+continued lightly, "I had no idea you were so fond of exercise. I'd have
+given you a lead all round the park if I'd known."
+
+"You'd 'ave given me a lead all round the county if them gates 'ad been
+open."
+
+"It might have been difficult to stop this fiery animal," Mr Beveridge
+admitted. "But now, Moggridge, the run is over. I think I can take Lady
+Alicia's horse back to her myself."
+
+Moggridge smiled grimly.
+
+"You won't let go?"
+
+"No fears."
+
+Mr Beveridge put his hand behind his back and silently drove the penknife
+a quarter of an inch into his mount's hind quarters. In an instant his
+keeper felt himself being lifted nearly off his feet, and in another
+actually deposited on his face. Off went the accomplished horseman again
+at top speed, but this time back to Lady Alicia. He saw her standing by
+the side of the drive, her handkerchief to her eyes, a penitent and
+disconsolate little figure. When she heard him coming, she dried her eyes
+and looked up, but her face was still tearful.
+
+"Well, I am back from my ride," he remarked in a perfectly usual voice,
+dismounting as he spoke.
+
+"The man!" she cried, "where is that dreadful man?"
+
+"What man?" he asked in some surprise.
+
+"The man who chased you."
+
+Mr Beveridge laughed aloud, at which Lady Alicia took fresh refuge in her
+handkerchief.
+
+"He follows on foot," he replied.
+
+"Did he catch you? Oh, why didn't you escape altogether?" she sobbed.
+
+Mr Beveridge looked at her with growing interest.
+
+"I had begun to forget my petticoat psychology," he reflected (aloud,
+after his unconventional fashion).
+
+"Oh, here he comes," she shuddered. "All blood! Oh, what have you done to
+him?"
+
+"On my honour, nothing,--I merely haven't washed his face."
+
+By this time Moggridge was coming close upon them.
+
+"You won't forget a poor soldier?" said Mr Beveridge in a lower voice.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"A _poor_ soldier," he added, with a sigh, glancing at her from the corner
+of his eye. "So poor that even if I had got out, I could only have ridden
+till I dropped."
+
+"Would you accept----?" she began, timidly.
+
+"What day?" he interrupted, hurriedly.
+
+"Tuesday," she hesitated.
+
+"Four o'clock, again. Same place as before. When I whistle throw it over
+at once."
+
+Before they had time to say more, Moggridge, blood- and gravel-stained,
+came up.
+
+"It's all right, miss," he said, coming between them; "I'll see that he
+plays no more of 'is tricks. There's nothin' to be afrightened of."
+
+"Stand back!" she cried; "don't come near me!"
+
+Moggridge was too staggered at this outburst to say a word.
+
+"Stand away!" she said, and the bewildered attendant stood away. She
+turned to Mr Beveridge.
+
+"Now, will you help me up?"
+
+She mounted lightly, said a brief farewell, and, forgetting all about the
+call at Clankwood she had ostensibly come to pay, turned her horse's head
+towards the lodge.
+
+"Well, I'm blowed!" said Moggridge.
+
+"They do blow one," his patient assented.
+
+Naturally enough the story of this equestrian adventure soon ran through
+Clankwood. The exact particulars, however, were a little hard to collect,
+for while Moggridge supplied many minute and picturesque details,
+illustrating his own activity and presence of mind and the imminent peril
+of the Lady Alicia, Mr Beveridge recounted an equally vivid story of a
+runaway horse recovered by himself to its fair owner's unbounded
+gratitude. Official opinion naturally accepted the official account, and
+for the next few days Mr Beveridge became an object of considerable
+anxiety and mistrust.
+
+"I can't make the man out," said Sherlaw to Escott. "I had begun to think
+there was nothing much the matter with him."
+
+"No more there is," replied Escott. "His memory seems to me to have
+suffered from something, and he simply supplies its place in conversation
+from his imagination, and in action from the inspiration of the moment.
+The methods of society are too orthodox for such an aberration, and as his
+friends doubtless pay a handsome fee to keep him here, old Congers labels
+him mad and locks the door on him."
+
+A day or two afterwards official opinion was a little disturbed. Lady
+Alicia, in reply to anxious inquiries, gave a third version of the
+adventure, from which nothing in particular could be gathered except that
+nothing in particular had happened.
+
+"What do you make of this, Escott?" asked Dr Congleton, laying her note
+before his assistant.
+
+"Merely that a woman wrote it."
+
+"Hum! I suppose that _is_ the explanation."
+
+Upon which the doctor looked profound and went to lunch.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"Two five-pound notes, half-a-sovereign, and seven and sixpence in
+silver," said Mr Beveridge to himself. "Ah, and a card."
+
+On the card was written, "From a friend, if you will accept it. A."
+
+He was standing under the wall, in the secluded walk, holding a little
+lady's purse in his hand, and listening to two different footsteps. One
+little pair of feet were hurrying away on the farther side of the high
+wall, another and larger were approaching him at a run.
+
+"Wot's he bin up to now, I wonder," Moggridge panted to himself--for the
+second pair of feet belonged to him. "Shamming nose-bleed and sending me
+in for an 'andkerchief, and then sneaking off here by 'isself!"
+
+"What a time you've been," said Mr Beveridge, slipping the purse with its
+contents into his pocket. "I was so infernally cold I had to take a little
+walk. Got the handkerchief?"
+
+In silence and with a suspicious solemnity Moggridge handed him the
+handkerchief, and they turned back for the house.
+
+"Now for a balloon," Mr Beveridge reflected.
+
+Certainly it was cold. The frost nipped sharp that night, and next morning
+there were ice gardens on the windows, and the park lay white all through
+the winter sunshine.
+
+By evening the private lake was reported to be bearing, and the next day
+it hummed under the first skaters. Hardly necessary to say Mr Beveridge
+was among the earliest of them, or that he was at once the object of
+general admiration and envy. He traced "vines" and "Q's," and performed
+wonderful feats on one leg all morning. At lunch he was in the best of
+spirits, and was off again at once to the ice.
+
+When he reached the lake in the afternoon the first person he spied was
+Lady Alicia, and five minutes afterwards they were sailing off together
+hand in hand.
+
+"I knew you would come to-day," he remarked.
+
+"How _could_ you have known? It was by the merest chance I happened to
+come."
+
+"It has always been by the merest chance that any of them have ever come."
+
+"Who have ever come?" she inquired, with a vague feeling that he had said
+something he ought not to have, and that she was doing the same.
+
+"Many things," he smiled, "including purses. Which reminds me that I am
+eternally your debtor."
+
+She blushed and said, "I hope you didn't mind."
+
+"Not much," he answered, candidly. "In my present circumstances a
+five-pound note is more acceptable than a caress."
+
+The Lady Alicia again remembered the maidenly proprieties, and tried to
+change the subject.
+
+"What beautiful ice!" she said.
+
+"The question now is," he continued, paying no heed to this diversion,
+"what am I to do next?"
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked a little faintly, realising dimly that she
+was being regarded as a fellow-conspirator in some unlawful project.
+
+"The wall is high, there is bottle-glass on the top, and I shall find it
+hard to bring away a fresh pair of trousers, and probably draughty if I
+don't. The gates are always kept closed, and it isn't worth any one's
+while to open them for £10, 17s. 6d., less the price of a first-class
+ticket up to town. What are we to do?"
+
+"We?" she gasped.
+
+"You and I," he explained.
+
+"But--but I can't _possibly_ do anything."
+
+" 'Can't possibly' is a phrase I have learned to misunderstand."
+
+"Really, Mr Beveridge, I mustn't do anything."
+
+"Mustn't is an invariable preface to a sin. Never use it; it's a
+temptation in itself."
+
+"It wouldn't be right," she said, with quite a show of firmness.
+
+He looked at her a little curiously. For a moment he almost seemed
+puzzled. Then he pressed her hand and asked tenderly, "Why not?"
+
+And in a half-audible aside he added, "That's the correct move, I think."
+
+"What did you say?" she asked.
+
+"I said, 'Why not?' " he answered, with increasing tenderness.
+
+"But you said something else."
+
+"I added a brief prayer for pity."
+
+Lady Alicia sighed and repeated a little less firmly. "It wouldn't be
+right of me, Mr Beveridge."
+
+"But what would be wrong?"
+
+This was said with even more fervour.
+
+"My conscience--we are very particular, you know."
+
+"Who are 'we'?"
+
+"Papa is _very_ strict High Church."
+
+An idea seemed to strike Mr Beveridge, for he ruminated in silence.
+
+"I asked Mr Candles--our curate, you know," Lady Alicia continued, with a
+heroic effort to make her position clear.
+
+"You told him!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, I didn't say who it was--I mean what it was I thought of doing--I mean
+the temptation--that is, the possibility. And he said it was very kind of
+me to think of it; but I mustn't do anything, and he advised me to read a
+book he gave me, and--and I mustn't think of it, really, Mr Beveridge."
+
+To himself Mr Beveridge repeated under his breath, "Archbishops, bishops,
+deacons, curates, fast in Lent, and an anthem after the Creed. I think I
+remember enough to pass."
+
+Then he assumed a very serious face, and said aloud, "Your scruples do
+your heart credit. They have given me an insight into your deep and sweet
+character, which emboldens me to make a confession."
+
+He stopped skating, folded his arms, and continued unblushingly, "I was
+educated for the Church, but the prejudices of my parents, the immature
+scepticism of youth, and some uncertainty about obtaining my
+archbishopric, induced me in an unfortunate moment, which I never ceased
+to bitterly regret, to quit my orders."
+
+"You are in orders?" she exclaimed.
+
+"I was in several. I cancelled them, and entered the Navy instead."
+
+"The Navy?" she asked, excusably bewildered by these rapid changes of
+occupation.
+
+"For five years I was never ashore."
+
+"But," she hesitated--"but you said you were in the Army."
+
+Mr Beveridge gave her a look full of benignant compassion that made her,
+she did not quite know why, feel terribly abashed.
+
+"My regiment was quartered at sea," he condescended to explain. "But in
+time my conscience awoke. I announced my intention of resuming my charge.
+My uncle was furious. My enemies were many. I was seized, thrown into this
+prison-house, and now my only friend fails me."
+
+They were both silent. She ventured once to glance up at his face, and it
+seemed to her that his eyes were moist--though perhaps it was that her own
+were a little dim.
+
+"Let us skate on," he said abruptly, with a fine air of resignation.
+
+"By the way," he suddenly added, "I was extremely High Church, in fact
+almost freezingly high."
+
+For five minutes they skated in silence, then Lady Alicia began softly,
+"Supposing you--you went away----"
+
+"What is the use of talking of it?" he exclaimed, melodramatically. "Let
+me forget my short-lived hopes!"
+
+"You _have_ a friend," she said, slowly.
+
+"A friend who tantalises me by 'supposings'!"
+
+"But supposing you did, Mr Beveridge, would you go back to your--did you
+say you had a parish?"
+
+"I had: a large, populous, and happy parish. It is my one dream to sit
+once more on its council and direct my curate."
+
+"Of course that makes a difference. Mr Candles didn't know all this."
+
+They had come by this time to the corner of a little island that lay not
+far from the shore; in the channel ahead a board labelled "Danger" marked
+a hidden spring; behind them the shining ice was almost bare of skaters,
+for all but Dr Escott seemed to be leaving; on the bank they could see
+Moggridge prowling about in the gathering dusk, a vigilant reminder of
+captivity. Mr Beveridge took the whole scene in with, it is to be feared,
+a militant rather than an episcopal eye. Then he suddenly asked, "Are you
+alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You drive back?"
+
+"Ye--es."
+
+He took out his watch and made a brief calculation.
+
+"Go now, call at Clankwood or do anything else you like, and pass down the
+drive again at a quarter to five."
+
+This sudden pinning of her irresolution almost took Lady Alicia's breath
+away.
+
+"But I never said----" she began.
+
+"My dear friend," he interrupted, "in the hour of action only a fool ever
+says. Come on."
+
+And while she still hesitated they were off again.
+
+"But----" she tried to expostulate.
+
+"My dearest friend," he whispered, "and my dear old vicarage!"
+
+He gave her no time to protest. Her skates were off, she was on her way to
+her carriage, and he was striking out again for the middle of the lake
+before she had time to collect her wits.
+
+He took out his watch and looked at the time. It was nearly a quarter-past
+four. Then he came up to Escott, who by this time was the only other soul
+on the ice.
+
+"About time we were going in," said Escott.
+
+"Give me half-an-hour more. I'll show you how to do that vine you
+admired."
+
+"All right," assented the doctor.
+
+A minute or two later Mr Beveridge, as if struck by a sudden reflection,
+exclaimed, "By Jove, there's that poor devil Moggridge freezing to death
+on shore. Can't you manage to look after so dangerous a lunatic yourself?
+It is his tea-time, too."
+
+"Hallo, so he is," replied Escott; "I'll send him up."
+
+And so there were only left the two men on the ice.
+
+For a little the lesson went on, and presently, leaving the doctor to
+practise, Mr Beveridge skated away by himself. He first paused opposite a
+seat on the bank over which hung Dr Escott's great fur coat. This
+spectacle appeared to afford him peculiar pleasure. Then he looked at his
+watch. It was half-past four. He shut the watch with a click, threw a
+glance at his pupil, and struck out for the island. If the doctor had been
+looking, he might have seen him round it in the gloaming.
+
+Dr Escott, leaning far on his outside edge, met him as he returned.
+
+"What's that under your coat?" he asked.
+
+"A picture I intend to ask your opinion on presently," replied Mr
+Beveridge; and he added, with his most charming air, "But now, before we
+go in, let me give you a ride on one of these chairs, doctor."
+
+They started off, the pace growing faster and faster, and presently Dr
+Escott saw that they were going behind the island.
+
+"Look out for the spring!" he cried.
+
+"It must be bearing now," replied Mr Beveridge, striking out harder than
+ever; "they have taken away the board."
+
+"All right," said the doctor, "on you go."
+
+As he spoke he felt a violent push, and the chair, slewing round as it
+went, flew on its course unguided. Mr Beveridge's skates rasped on the ice
+with a spray of white powder as he stopped himself suddenly. Ahead of him
+there was a rending crack, and Dr Escott and his chair disappeared. Mr
+Beveridge laughed cheerfully, and taking from under his coat a board with
+the legend "Danger" printed in large characters across its face, he placed
+it beside the jagged hole.
+
+"Here is the picture, doctor," he said, as a dripping, gasping head came
+up for the second time. "I must ask a thousand pardons for this--shall I
+say, liberty? But, as you know, I'm off my head. Good night. Let me
+recommend a hot drink when you come out. There are only five feet of
+water, so you won't drown." And with that he skated rapidly away.
+
+Escott had a glimpse of him vanishing round the corner of the island, and
+then the ice broke again, and down he went. Four, five, six times he made
+a desperate effort to get out, and every time the thin ice tore under his
+hands, and he slipped back again. By the seventh attempt he had broken his
+way to the thicker sheet; he got one leg up, slipped, got it up again, and
+at last, half numbed and wholly breathless, he was crawling circumspectly
+away. When at last he ventured to rise to his feet, he skated with all the
+speed he could make to the seat where he had left his coat. A pair of
+skates lay there instead, but the coat had vanished. Dr Escott's
+philosophical estimate of Mr Beveridge became considerably modified.
+
+"Thank the Lord, he can't get out of the grounds," he said to himself;
+"what a dangerous devil he is! But he'll be sorry for this performance, or
+I'm mistaken."
+
+When he arrived at the house his first inquiries were for his tutor in the
+art of vine-cutting, and he was rather surprised to hear that he had not
+yet returned, for he only imagined himself the victim of a peculiarly
+ill-timed practical joke.
+
+Men with lanterns were sent out to search the park; and still there was no
+sign of Mr Beveridge. Inquiries were made at the lodge, but the gatekeeper
+could swear that only a single carriage had passed through. Dr Congleton
+refused at first to believe that he could possibly have got out.
+
+"Our arrangements are perfect,--the thing's absurd," he said, peremptorily.
+
+"That there man, sir," replied Moggridge, who had been summoned, "is the
+slipperiest customer as ever I seed. 'E's hout, sir, I believe."
+
+"We might at least try the stations," suggested Escott, who had by this
+time changed, and indulged in the hot drink recommended.
+
+The doctor began to be a little shaken.
+
+"Well, well," said he, "I'll send a man to each of the three stations
+within walking distance; and whether he's out or in, we'll have him by
+to-morrow morning. I've always taken care that he had no money in his
+pockets."
+
+But what is a doctor's care against a woman's heart? For many to-morrows
+Clankwood had to lament the loss of the gifted Francis Beveridge.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+At sixteen minutes to five Mr Beveridge stood by the side of the Clankwood
+Avenue, comfortably wrapped in Dr Escort's fur coat, and smoking with the
+greatest relish one of Dr Escott's undeniable cigars.
+
+It was almost dark, the air bit keen, the dim park with its population of
+black trees was filled with a frosty, eager stillness. All round the
+invisible wall hemmed him in, the ten pounds, seventeen shillings, and
+sixpence lay useless in his pocket till that was past, and his one hope
+depended on a woman. But Mr Beveridge was an amateur in the sex, and he
+smiled complacently as he smoked.
+
+He had waited barely three minutes when the quick clatter of a pair of
+horses fell on his ears, and presently the lights of a carriage and pair,
+driving swiftly away from Clankwood, raked the drive on either side. As
+they rattled up to him he gave a shout to the coachman to stop, and
+stepped right in front of the horses. With something that sounded unlike a
+blessing, the pair were thrown almost on their haunches to check them in
+time. Never stopping to explain, he threw open the door and sprang in; the
+coachman, hearing no sound of protest, whipped up again, and Mr Beveridge
+found himself rolling through the park of Clankwood in the Countess of
+Grillyer's carriage with a very timid little figure by his side. Even in
+that moment of triumphant excitement the excellence of his manners was
+remarkable: the first thing he said was, "Do you mind smoking?"
+
+In her confusion of mind Lady Alicia could only reply "Oh no," and not
+till some time afterwards did she remember that the odour of a cigar was
+clinging and the Countess's nose unusually sensitive.
+
+After this first remark he leaned back in silence, gradually filling the
+carriage with a blue-grey cloud, and looking out of the windows first on
+one side and then on the other. They passed quickly through the lines of
+trees and the open spaces of frosty park-land, they drew up at the lodge
+for a moment, he heard his prison gates swing open, the harness jingled
+and the hoofs began to clatter again, a swift vision of lighted windows
+and a man looking on them incuriously swept by, and then they were rolling
+over a country road between hedgerows and under the free stars.
+
+It was the Lady Alicia who spoke first.
+
+"I never thought you would really come," she said.
+
+"I have been waiting for that remark," he replied, with his most
+irresistible smile; "now for some more practical conversation."
+
+As he did not immediately begin this conversation himself, her curiosity
+overcame her, and she asked, "How did you manage to get out?"
+
+"As my friend Dr Escott offered no opposition, I walked away."
+
+"Did he really let you?"
+
+"He never even expostulated."
+
+"Then--then it's all right?" she said, with an inexplicable sensation of
+disappointment.
+
+"Perfectly--so far."
+
+"But--didn't they object?"
+
+"Not yet," he replied; "objections to my movements are generally made
+after they have been performed."
+
+Somehow she felt immensely relieved at this hint of opposition.
+
+"I'm so glad you got away," she whispered, and then repented in a flutter.
+
+"Not more so than I am," he answered, pressing her hand.
+
+"And now," he added, "I should like to know how near Ashditch Junction you
+propose to take me."
+
+"Where are you going to, Mr Beveridge?"
+
+The "Mr Beveridge" was thrown in as a corrective to the hand-pressure.
+
+"To London; where else, my Alicia? With £10, 17s. 6d. in my pocket, I
+shall be able to eat at least three good dinners, and, by the third of
+them, if I haven't fallen on my feet it will be the first time I have
+descended so unluckily."
+
+"But," she asked, considerably disconcerted, "I thought you were going
+back to your parish."
+
+For a moment he too seemed a trifle put about. Then he replied readily,
+"So I am, as soon as I have purchased the necessary outfit, restocked my
+ecclesiastical library, and called on my bishop."
+
+She felt greatly relieved at this justification of her share in the
+adventure.
+
+"Drop me at the nearest point to the station," he said.
+
+"I am afraid," she began--"I mean I think you had better get out soon. The
+first road on the right will take you straight there, and we had better
+not pass it."
+
+"Then I must bid you farewell," and he sighed most effectively. "Farewell,
+my benefactress, my dear Alicia! Shall I ever see you, shall I ever hear
+of you again?"
+
+"I might--I might just write once; if you will answer it: I mean if you
+would care to hear from such a----"
+
+She found it difficult to finish, and prudently stopped.
+
+"Thanks," he replied cheerfully; "do,--I shall live in hopes. I'd better
+stop the carriage now."
+
+He let down the window, when she said hastily, "But I don't know your
+address."
+
+He reflected for an instant. "Care of the Archbishop of York will always
+find me," he replied; and as if unwilling to let his emotion be observed,
+he immediately put his head out of the window and called on the coachman
+to stop.
+
+"Good-bye," he whispered, tenderly, squeezing her fingers with one hand
+and opening the door with the other.
+
+"Don't quite forget me," she whispered back.
+
+"Never!" he replied, and was in the act of getting out when he suddenly
+turned, and exclaimed, "I must be more out of practice than I thought; I
+had almost forgotten the protested salute."
+
+And without further preamble the Lady Alicia found herself kissed at last.
+
+He jumped out and shut the door, and the carriage with its faint halo
+clattered into the darkness.
+
+"They are wonderfully alike," he reflected.
+
+About twenty minutes later he walked leisurely into Ashditch Junction, and
+having singled out the station-master, he accosted him with an air of
+beneficient consideration and inquired how soon he could catch a train for
+London.
+
+It appeared that the up express was not due for nearly three-quarters of
+an hour.
+
+"A little too long to wait," he said to himself, as he turned up the
+collar of his purloined fur coat to keep out the cold, and picked another
+cigar from its rightful owner's case.
+
+By way of further defying the temperature and cementing his acquaintance
+with the station-master, he offered to regale that gratified official with
+such refreshments as the station bar provided. In the consumption of
+whiskies-and-sodas (a beverage difficult to obtain in any quantity at
+Clankwood) Mr Beveridge showed himself as accomplished as in every other
+feat. In thirty-five minutes he had despatched no fewer than six, besides
+completely winning the station-master's heart. As he had little more than
+five minutes now to wait, he bade a genial farewell to the lady behind the
+bar, and started to purchase his ticket.
+
+Hardly had he left the door of the refreshment-room when he perceived an
+uncomfortably familiar figure just arrived, breathless with running, on
+the opposite platform. The light of a lamp fell on his shining face: it
+was Moggridge!
+
+A stout heart might be forgiven for sinking at the sight, but Mr Beveridge
+merely turned to his now firm friends and said with his easiest air, "On
+the opposite platform I perceive one of my runaway lunatics. Bring a
+couple of stout porters as quickly as you can, for he is a person of much
+strength and address. My name," he drew a card-case from the pocket of his
+fur coat, "is, as you see, Dr Escott of Clankwood."
+
+Meanwhile Moggridge, after hurriedly investigating the platform he was on,
+suddenly spied a tall fur-coated figure on the opposite side. Without a
+moment's hesitation he sprang on to the rails, and had just mounted the
+other side as the station-master and two porters appeared.
+
+Seeing his allies by his side Mr Beveridge never said a word, but,
+throwing off his hat, he lowered his head, charged his keeper, and picking
+him up by the knees threw him heavily on his back. Before he had a chance
+of recovering himself the other three were seated on his chest employed in
+winding a coil of rope round and round his prostrate form.
+
+Two minutes later Moggridge was sitting bound hand and foot in the booking
+office, addressing an amused audience in a strain of perhaps excusable
+exasperation, which however merely served to impress the Ashditch
+officials with a growing sense of their address in capturing so dangerous
+a lunatic. In the middle of this entertaining scene the London express
+steamed in, and Mr Beveridge, courteously thanking the station-master for
+his assistance, stepped into a first-class carriage.
+
+"I should be much obliged," he said, leaning on the door of his
+compartment and blowing the smoke of Dr Escott's last Havannah lightly
+from his lips, "if you would be kind enough to keep that poor fellow in
+the station till to-morrow. It is rather too late to send him back now.
+Good night, and many thanks."
+
+He pressed a coin into the station-master's hand, which that disappointed
+official only discovered on emptying his pockets at night to be an
+ordinary sixpence, the guard whistled, and one by one, smoothly and slowly
+and then in a bright stream, the station lamps slipped by. The last of
+them flitted into the night, and the train swung and rattled by a mile a
+minute nearer to London town and farther from the high stone wall. There
+was no other stop, and for a long hour the adventurer sat with his legs
+luxuriously stretched along the cushions looking out into a fainter
+duplicate of his carriage, pierced now and then by the glitter of brighter
+points as they whisked by some wayside village, or crossed by the black
+shadows of trees. The whole time he smiled contentedly, doubtless at the
+prospect of his parish work. All at once he seemed stirred, and, turning
+in his seat, laid his face upon the window, and pulled down the blind
+behind his head, so that he could see into the night. He had spied the
+first bright filaments of London. Quickly they spread into a twinkling
+network, and then as quickly were shut out by the first line of suburb
+houses; through the gaps they grew nearer and flared cheerfully; the train
+hooted over an archway, and in the road below he had a glimpse of shop
+windows and crowded pavements and moving omnibuses: he was in the world
+again, and at the foretaste of all this life he laughed like a delighted
+child. Last of all came the spread of shining rails and the red and yellow
+lights of many signals, and then the high glass roof and long lamp-lit
+platforms of St Euston's Cross.
+
+Unencumbered by luggage or plans, Mr Francis Beveridge stuck his hands
+deep in his pockets and strolled aimlessly enough out of the station into
+the tideway of the Euston Road. For a little he stood stock-still on the
+pavement watching the throng of people and the perpetual buses and drays
+and the jingling hansoms picking their way through it all.
+
+"For a man of brains," he moralised, "even though he be certified as
+insane, for probably the best of reasons, this London has surely fools
+enough to provide him with all he needs and more than he deserves. I shall
+set out with my lantern like a second Diogenes to look for a foolish man."
+
+And so he strolled along again to the first opening southwards. That led
+him through a region of dingy enough brick by day, but decked now with its
+string of lamps and bright shop-windows here and there, and kept alive by
+passing buses and cabs going and coming from the station. Farther on the
+street grew gloomier, and a dark square with a grove of trees in the
+middle opened off one side; but, rattle or quiet, flaring shops or
+sad-looking lodgings, he found it all too fresh and amusing to hurry.
+
+"Back to my parish again," he said to himself, smiling broadly at the
+drollery of the idea. "If I'm caught to-morrow, I'll at least have one
+merry night in my wicked, humorous old charge."
+
+He reached Holborn and turned west in the happiest and most enviable of
+moods; the very policemen seemed to cast a friendly eye on him; the frosty
+air, he thought, made the lights burn brighter and the crowd move more
+briskly than ever he had seen them. Suddenly the sight of a hairdresser's
+saloon brought an inspiration. He stroked his beard, twisted his
+moustaches half regretfully, and then exclaiming, "Exit Mr Beveridge,"
+turned into the shop.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART II.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The Baron Rudolf von Blitzenberg sat by himself at a table in the
+dining-room of the Hôtel Mayonaise, which, as everybody knows, is the
+largest and most expensive in London. He was a young man of a florid and
+burly Teutonic type and the most ingenuous countenance. Being possessed of
+a curious and enterprising disposition, as well as the most ample means,
+he had left his ancestral castle in Bavaria to study for a few months the
+customs and politics of England. In the language he was already
+proficient, and he had promised himself an amusing as well as an
+instructive visit. But, although he had only arrived in London that
+morning, he was already beginning to feel an uncomfortable apprehension
+lest in both respects he should be disappointed. Though his introductions
+were the best with which the British Ambassador could supply him, they
+were only three or four in number,--for, not wishing to be hampered with
+too many acquaintances, he had rather chosen quality than quantity: and
+now, in the course of the afternoon, he had found to his chagrin that in
+every case the families were out of town. In fact, so far as he could
+learn, they were not even at their own country seats. One was abroad,
+another gone to the seaside to recover from the mumps, or a third paying a
+round of visits.
+
+The disappointment was sharp, he felt utterly at sea as to what he should
+do, and he was already beginning to experience the loneliness of a single
+mortal in a crowded hotel.
+
+As the frosty evening was setting in and the shops were being lit, he had
+strolled out into the streets in the vague hope of meeting some strange
+foreign adventure, or perhaps even happily lighting upon some
+half-forgotten diplomatic acquaintance. But he found the pavements crowded
+with a throng who took no notice of him at all, but seemed every man and
+most women of them to be pushing steadily, and generally silently, towards
+a million mysterious goals. Not that he could tell they were silent except
+by their set lips, for the noise of wheels and horses on so many hundreds
+of miles of streets, and the cries of busmen and vendors of evening
+papers, made such a hubbub that he felt before long in a maze. He lost his
+way four times, and was patronisingly set right by beneficent policemen;
+and at last, feeling like a man who has fallen off a precipice on to a
+soft place--none the worse but quite bewildered--he struggled back to his
+hotel. There he spun out his time by watching the people come and go, and
+at last dressed with extra deliberation.
+
+About eight o'clock he sat down to his solitary dinner. The great gilt and
+panelled room was full of diners and bustling waiters, but there was not a
+face the Baron had ever seen before. He was just finishing a plate of
+whitebait when he observed a stranger enter the room and stroll in a very
+self-possessed manner down the middle, glancing at the tables round him as
+though he was looking either for a friend or a desirable seat. This
+gentleman was tall, fair, and clean-shaved; he was dressed in a suit of
+well-fitting tweeds, and his air impressed the Baron as being natural and
+yet distinguished. At last his eye fell upon the Baron, who felt conscious
+of undergoing a quick, critical scrutiny. The table at which that nobleman
+sat was laid for two, and coming apparently to a sudden resolution, the
+good-looking stranger seated himself in the vacant chair. In an agreeable
+voice and with an unmistakably well-bred air he asked a waiter for the
+wine-list, and then, like a man with an excellent appetite, fell to upon
+the various _hors d'oeuvres_, the entire collection of which, in fact, he
+consumed in a wonderfully short space of time. The Baron, being himself no
+trifler with his victuals, regarded this feat with sympathetic approval,
+and began to feel a little less alone in the world. His naturally open
+disposition was warmed besides, owing to a slight misconception he had
+fallen into, perfectly excusable however in a foreigner. He thought he had
+read somewhere that port was the usual accompaniment to the first courses
+of an English dinner, and as his waiter had been somewhat dilatory in
+bringing him the more substantial items of the repast, he had already
+drunk three claret-glasses of this cheering wine. The chill recollections
+of his sixteen quarterings and the exclusiveness he had determined to
+maintain as becoming to his rank were already melting, and he met the
+stranger's eye with what for the life of him he could not help being a
+cordial look.
+
+His _vis-à-vis_ caught the glance, smiled back, and immediately asked,
+with the most charming politeness, "Do you care, sir, to split a bottle of
+champagne?"
+
+"To--er--_shplid?_" said the Baron, with a disappointed consciousness of
+having been put at a loss in his English by the very first man who had
+spoken to him.
+
+"I beg your pardon,--I am afraid I was unintelligibly idiomatic. To divide,
+I should say, you consuming one-half, I the other. Am I clear, sir?"
+
+For a moment the Baron was a little taken aback, and then recollecting
+that the dining habits of the English were still new to him, he concluded
+that the suggestion was probably a customary act of courtesy. He had
+already come to the conclusion that the gentleman must be a person of
+rank, and he replied affably, "Yah--zat is, vid pleasure. Zanks, very."
+
+"The pleasure is mine," said the stranger--"and half the bottle," he added,
+smiling.
+
+The Baron, whose perception of humour had been abnormally increased by
+this time, laughed hilariously at the infection of his new acquaintance's
+smile.
+
+"Goot, goot!" he cried. "Ach, yah, zo."
+
+"Am I right, sir, in supposing that, despite the perfection of your
+English accent, I cannot be fortunate enough to claim you as a
+countryman?" asked the stranger.
+
+The Baron's resolutions of reticence had vanished altogether before such
+unexpected and (he could not but think) un-English friendliness. He
+unburdened his heart with a rush.
+
+"You have ze right. I am Deutsch. I have gom to England zis day for to
+lairn and to amuse myself. But mein, vat you call?--introdogtions zey are
+not inside, zat is zey are from off. Not von, all, every single gone to ze
+gontry or to abroad. I am alone, I eat my dinner in zolitude, I am pleased
+to meet you, sare."
+
+A cork popped and the champagne frothed into the stranger's glass. Raising
+it to his lips, he said, "Prosit!"
+
+"Prosit!" responded the Baron, enthusiastically. "You know ze Deutsch,
+sare?"
+
+"I am safer in English, I confess."
+
+"Ach, das ist goot, I vant for to practeese. Ve vill talk English."
+
+"With all my heart," said the stranger. "I, too, am alone, and I hold
+myself more than fortunate in making your acquaintance. It's a devilish
+dull world when one can't share a bottle--or a brace of them, for the
+matter of that."
+
+"You know London?" asked the Baron.
+
+"I used to, and I daresay my memory will revive."
+
+"I know it not, pairhaps you can inform. I haf gom, as I say, to-day."
+
+"With pleasure," said the stranger, readily. "In fact, if you are ever
+disengaged I may possibly be able to act as showman."
+
+"Showman!" roared the Baron, thinking he had discovered a jest. "Ha, ha,
+ha! Goot, zehr goot!"
+
+The other looked a trifle astonished for an instant, and then as he sipped
+his champagne an expression of intense satisfaction came over his face.
+
+"I can put away my lantern," he said to himself,--"I have found him."
+
+"May I have the boldness to ask your name, sir?" he asked aloud.
+
+"Ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg," that nobleman replied. "Yours,
+sare--may I dare?"
+
+"Francis Bunker, at your service, Baron."
+
+"You are noble?" queried the Baron a little anxiously, for his prejudices
+on this point were strong.
+
+"According to your standard I believe I may say so. That's to say, my
+family have borne arms for two hundred odd generations; twenty-five per
+cent of them have died of good living; and the most malicious have never
+accused us of brains. I myself may not be very typical, but I assure you
+it isn't my ancestors' fault."
+
+The latter part of this explanation entirely puzzled the Baron. The first
+statement, though eminently satisfactory, was also a little bewildering.
+
+"Two hondred generations?" he asked, courteously. "Zat is a vary old
+family. All bore arms you say, Mistair Bonker?"
+
+"All," replied Mr Bunker, gravely. "The first few bore tails as well."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Baron. "You are a fonny man I pairceive, vat you
+call clown, yes?"
+
+"What my friends call clown, and I call wit," Mr Bunker corrected.
+
+"Vit! Ha, ha, ha!" roared the Baron, whose mind was now in an El Dorado of
+humour when jokes grew like daisies. His loneliness had disappeared as if
+by magic; as course succeeded course his contentment showed itself in a
+perpetually beaming smile: he ceased to worry even about his friend's
+pedigree, convinced in his mind that manners so delightful and
+distinguished could only result from repeated quarterings and unoccupied
+forefathers. Yet by the time dessert arrived and he had again returned to
+his port, he began to feel an extreme curiosity to know more concerning Mr
+Bunker. He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous
+information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially
+the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his
+parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position
+as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things
+equally entertaining and instructive. Mr Bunker, for his part, had so far
+confined his confidences to his name.
+
+"My dear Bonker," said the Baron at last--he had become quite familiar by
+this time--"vat make you in London? I fear you are bird of passage. Do you
+stay long?"
+
+Mr Bunker cracked a nut, looking very serious; then he leant on one elbow,
+glanced up at the ceiling pensively, and sighed.
+
+"I hope I do not ask vat I should not," the Baron interposed, courteously.
+
+"My dear Baron, ask what you like," replied Mr Bunker. "In a city full of
+strangers, or of friends who have forgotten me, you alone have my
+confidence. My story is a common one of youthful folly and present
+repentance, but such as it is, you are welcome to it."
+
+The Baron gulped down half a glass of port and leaned forward
+sympathetically.
+
+"My father," Mr Bunker continued with an air of half-sad reminiscence, "is
+one of the largest landowners and the head of one of the most ancient
+families in the north of England. I was his eldest son and heir. I am
+still, I have every reason to believe, his eldest son, but my heirship, I
+regret to say, is more doubtful. I spent a prodigal youth and a larger sum
+of money than my poor father approved of. He was a strict though a kind
+parent, and for the good of my health and the replenishment of the family
+coffers, which had been sadly drained by my extravagance, he sent me
+abroad. There I have led a roving life for the last six years, and at
+last, my wild oats sown, reaped, and gathered in (and a well-filled
+stackyard they made, I can assure you), I decided to return to England and
+become an ornament to respectable society. Like you, I arrived in London
+to-day, but only to find to my disgust that my family have gone to winter
+in Egypt. So you see that at present I am like a shipwrecked sailor
+clinging to a rock and waiting, with what patience I can muster, for a
+boat to take me off."
+
+"You mean," inquired the Baron, anxiously, "that you vish to go to Egypt
+at vonce?"
+
+"I had thought of it; though there is a difficulty in the way, I admit."
+
+"You vill not stay zen here?" "My dear Baron, why should I? I have neither
+friends nor----"
+
+He stopped abruptly.
+
+"I do not like to zink I shall lose your company so soon."
+
+"I admit," allowed Mr Bunker, "that this fortunate meeting tempts me to
+stay."
+
+"Vy not?" said the Baron, cordially. "Can your fader not vait to see you?"
+
+"I hardly think he will worry about me, I confess."
+
+"Zen stay, my goot Bonker!"
+
+"Unfortunately there is the same difficulty as stands in the way of my
+going to Egypt."
+
+"And may I inquire vat zat is?"
+
+"To tell you the truth," replied Mr Bunker, with an air of reluctant
+candour, "my funds are rather low. I had trusted to finding my father at
+home, but as he isn't, why----" he shrugged his shoulders and threw himself
+back in his chair.
+
+The Baron seemed struck with an idea which he hesitated to express.
+
+"Shall we smoke?" his friend suggested.
+
+"Vaiter!" cried the Baron, "bring here two best cigars and two coffee!"
+
+"A liqueur, Baron?"
+
+"Ach, yah. Vat for you?"
+
+"A liqueur brandy suggests itself."
+
+"Vaiter! and two brandy."
+
+"And now," said the Baron, "I haf an idea, Bonker."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, as I have said, had a warm heart. He
+was, besides, alone in one hundred and twenty square miles of strangers
+and foreigners when he had happened upon this congenial spirit. He began
+in a tone of the most ingenuous friendliness--
+
+"I haf no friends here. My introdogtions zey are gone. Bot I haf moch
+money, and I vish a, vat you say?--showman, ha, ha, ha! You haf too leetle
+money and no friends and you can show. You show and I will loan you vat
+you vish. May I dare to suggest?"
+
+"My dear Baron!"
+
+"My goot Bonker! I am in airnest, I assure. Vy not? It is vun gentleman
+and anozzer."
+
+"You are far too kind."
+
+"It is to myself I am kind, zen. I vant a guide, a frient. It is a loan.
+Do not scruple. Ven your fader goms you can pay if you please. It is
+nozing to me."
+
+"Well, my dear Baron," said Mr Bunker, like a man persuaded against his
+will, "what can I say? I confess I might find a little difficulty in
+replenishing my purse without resorting to disagreeable means, and if you
+really wish my society, why----"
+
+"Zen it is a bairgain?" cried the Baron.
+
+"If you insist----"
+
+"I insist. Vaiter! Alzo two ozzer liqueur. Ve most drink to ze bairgain,
+Bonker."
+
+They pledged each other cordially, and talked from that moment like old
+friends. The Baron was thoroughly pleased with himself, and Mr Bunker
+seemed no less gratified at his own good fortune. Half an hour went
+quickly by, and then the Baron exclaimed, "Let us do zomzing to-night,
+Bonker. I burn for to begin zis show of London."
+
+"What would you care to do, Baron? It is rather late, I am afraid, to
+think of a theatre. What do you say to a music-hall?"
+
+"Music-hall? I haf seen zem at home. Damned amusing, das ist ze
+expression, yes?"
+
+"It is a perfect description."
+
+"Bot," continued the Baron, solemnly, "I must not begin vid ze vickedest."
+
+"And yet," replied his friend, persuasively, "even wickedness needs a
+beginning."
+
+"Bot, if I begin I may not stop. Zomzing more qviet ze first night. Haf
+you a club?"
+
+Mr Bunker pondered for a moment, and a curious smile stole across his
+face. Then it vanished, and he answered readily, "Certainly, Baron, an
+excellent idea. I haven't been to my club for so long that it never struck
+me. Let us come."
+
+"Goot!" cried the Baron, rising with alacrity.
+
+They put on their coats (Mr Bunker's, it may be remarked, being a handsome
+fur-lined garment), the porter hailed a cab, and the driver was ordered to
+take them to the Regent's Club in Pall Mall. The Baron knew it by
+reputation as the most exclusive in London, and his opinion of his friend
+rose still higher.
+
+They joined a jingling string of other hansoms and sped swiftly through
+the exhilarating bustle of the streets. To the Baron it seemed as if a
+great change had come over the city since he wandered disconsolately
+before dinner. Carried swiftly to the music of the little bells through
+the sharp air and the London night that is brighter than day, with a
+friend by his side and a good dinner within, he marked the most
+astonishing difference. All the people seemed to talk and laugh, and for
+his own part he found it hard to keep his tongue still.
+
+"I know ze name of ze Regent's," he said; "vun club of ze best, is it
+not?"
+
+"The very best club, Baron."
+
+"Zey are all noble?"
+
+"In many cases the receipts for their escutcheons are still in their
+pockets."
+
+Though the precise significance of this explanation was not quite clear to
+the Baron, it sounded eminently satisfactory.
+
+"Zo?" he said. "I shall be moch interested to see zem."
+
+As they entered the club the porter stared at them curiously, and even
+made a movement as though he would step out and address them; but Mr
+Bunker, wishing him a courteous good evening, walked briskly up to the
+hat-and-cloak racks in the hall. A young man had just hung up his hat, and
+as he was divesting himself of his coat, Mr Bunker quickly took the hat
+down, glanced at the name inside, and replaced it on its peg. Then he held
+out his hand and addressed the young man cordially.
+
+"Good evening, Transome, how are you?" said he, and, heedless of the look
+of surprise on the other's face, he turned towards the Baron and added,
+"Let me introduce the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg--Mr Transome. The Baron
+has just come to England, and I thought he couldn't begin better than by a
+visit to the Regent's. Let us come into the smoking-room."
+
+In a few minutes they were all on the best of terms. A certain perplexity,
+and almost shyness, that the young man showed at first, vanished rapidly
+before the Baron's cordiality and Mr Bunker's well-bred charm of manner.
+
+They were deeply engrossed in a discussion on the reigning sovereign of
+the Baron's native land, a monarch of whose enlightened policy that
+nobleman spoke with pardonable pride, when two elderly gentlemen entered
+the room.
+
+"Who are these?" Mr Bunker whispered to Transome. "I know them very well,
+but I am always bad at names."
+
+"Lord Fabrigas and General M'Dermott," replied Transome.
+
+Instantly Mr Bunker rose and greeted the new-comers.
+
+"Good evening, Lord Fabrigas; good evening, General. You have just come in
+time to be introduced to the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, whom you
+doubtless know by reputation."
+
+The Baron rose and bowed, and it struck him that elderly English gentlemen
+were singularly stiff and constrained in their manner. Mr Bunker, however,
+continued cheerfully, "We are just going to have a smoking concert. Will
+you begin, Baron?"
+
+"I know not English songs," replied the Baron, "bot I should like moch to
+hear."
+
+"You must join in the chorus, then."
+
+"Certainly, Bonker. I haf a voice zat is considered--vat you
+call--deafening, yes?--in ze chorus."
+
+Mr Bunker cleared his throat, and, just as the General was on the point of
+interposing a remark, struck up hastily; and for the first time in its
+long and honourable history the smoking-room of the Regent's Club reechoed
+to a popular music-hall ditty.
+
+
+    "They sometimes call 'em duckies, they sometimes call 'em pets,
+      And sometimes they refer to 'em as dears
+    They live on little matters that a gentleman forgets,
+      In a little world of giggles and of tears;
+    There are different varieties from which a man may choose,
+      There are sorts and shapes and sizes without end,
+    But the kind I'd pick myself is the kind you introduce
+      By the simple title of 'my lady friend.' "
+
+
+"Chorus, Baron!" And then he trolled in waltz time this edifying refrain--
+
+
+    "My lady friend, my lady friend!
+          Can't you twig, dear boys,
+        From the sound of the kisses
+      She isn't my misses,
+    She's only my lady friend!"
+
+
+In a voice like a train going over a bridge the Baron chimed in--
+
+
+    "My laty vrient, my laty vrient!
+          Cannot you tvig, mine boy,
+        Vrom ze sound of ze kiss,
+      He is not my miss,
+    He is only mine laty vrient!"
+
+
+"I am afraid," said Mr Bunker, as they finished the chorus, "that I can't
+remember any more. Now, General, it's your turn."
+
+"Sir," replied that gallant officer, who had listened to this ditty in
+purple and petrified astonishment, "I don't know who the devil you are,
+but I can tell you, you won't remain a member of this club much longer if
+you come into it again in this state."
+
+"I had forgotten," said Mr Bunker, with even more than his usual
+politeness, "that such an admirable music-hall critic was listening to me.
+I must apologise for my poor effort."
+
+Wishing him courteously good-night, he took the Baron by the arm and
+walked out. While that somewhat perplexed nobleman was struggling into his
+coat, his friend rapidly and dexterously converted all the silk hats he
+could see into the condition of collapsed opera hats, and then picked a
+small hand-bag off the floor. The Baron walked out through the door first,
+but Mr Bunker stopped for an instant opposite the hall-porter's box, and
+crying, "Good night to you, sir!" hurled the bag through the glass, rushed
+after his friend, and in less time than it takes to tell they were tearing
+up Pall Mall in a hansom.
+
+For a few minutes both were silent; then the Baron said slowly, "I do not
+qvite onderstand."
+
+"My dear Baron," his friend explained gaily, "these practical jokes are
+very common in our clubs. They are quite part of our national life, you
+know, and I thought you ought to see everything."
+
+The Baron said nothing, but he began to realise that he was indeed in a
+foreign country.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"Vell, Bonker, vat show to-day?" said the Baron.
+
+Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.
+
+"What would you like?" said he.
+
+They were sitting in the Baron's private room finishing one of the
+renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the
+bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of
+barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the
+chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and
+the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer
+consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly
+raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a
+substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any
+adventure that might turn up.
+
+He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly, "I am in your
+hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing."
+
+"Do you wish instruction or entertainment?"
+
+"Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining."
+
+"You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that
+you wish entertaining experience from which a man of your philosophical
+temperament can draw a moral--afterwards."
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed the Baron. "Excellent! You provide ze experiences--I draw
+ze moral."
+
+"And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I'm afraid we
+need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being
+taken--by the hand--to Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul's
+Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a
+number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose
+that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come
+up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge
+of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of
+subsequent visits."
+
+"Bot zese places--Tousaud, Tower, Paul's--are zey not instrogtif?"
+
+"If you wish to learn that a great number of years ago a vast quantity of
+inconsequent events occurred, or that in an otherwise amusing enough world
+there are here and there collected so many roomfuls of cheerless articles,
+I can strongly recommend a visit to the Tower of London or the British
+Museum."
+
+"In mine own gontry," said the Baron, thoughtfully, "I can lairn zo moch."
+
+"Then, my dear Baron, while you are here forget it all."
+
+"And yet," said the Baron, still thoughtfully, "somzing I should lairn
+here."
+
+"Certainly; you will learn something of what goes on underneath a
+waistcoat and a little of the contents of a corset and petticoat. Also of
+the strange customs of this city and the excellence of British
+institutions."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Baron, who thought that if his friend had not
+actually made a jest, it was at least time for one to occur. "I see, I
+see. I draw ze moral, ha, ha!"
+
+"This morning," Mr Bunker continued, reflectively, "we might--let me
+see--well, we might do a little shopping. To tell you the truth, Baron, my
+South African experiences have somewhat exhausted my wardrobe."
+
+"Ach, zo. Cairtainly ve vill shop. Bot, Bonker, Soud Africa? Vas it not
+Soud America?"
+
+"Did I say Africa? America of course I meant. Well, let us shop if you
+have no objections: then we might have a little lunch, and afterwards
+visit the Park. For the evening, what do you say to a theatre?"
+
+"Goot!" cried the Baron. "Make it tzos."
+
+Mr Bunker's shopping turned out to be a pretty extensive operation.
+
+"Loan vat you please of money," said his friend. "A gentleman should be
+dressed in agreement."
+
+With now and then an apology for his extravagance, he took full advantage
+of the Baron's generosity, and ordered such an assortment of garments that
+his tailor could hardly bow low enough to express his gratification.
+
+After an excellent lunch in the most expensive restaurant to be found,
+they walked arm-in-arm westwards along Piccadilly, Mr Bunker pointing out
+the various objects of historical or ephemeral interest to be seen in that
+thoroughfare, the Baron drinking in this information with the serious air
+of the distinguished traveller.
+
+"And now we come to the Park," said Mr Bunker. "Guard your heart, Baron."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" replied the Baron. "Zo instrogtion is feenished, and now
+goms entertainment, ha?"
+
+"With the moral always running through it, remember."
+
+"I shall not forget."
+
+The sunshine had brought out a great many carriages and a sprinkling of
+walkers along the railings. The two friends strolled among them, eyeing
+the women and stopping now and then to look back at a carriage.
+
+"I suppose," said the Baron, "zat vile you haf been avay your frients have
+forgot you."
+
+As he spoke a young man looked hard at Mr Bunker, and even made a movement
+as though he would stop and speak to him. Mr Bunker looked blandly through
+him and walked on.
+
+"Do you not know zat gentleman?"
+
+"Which gentleman?"
+
+"Ze young man zat looked so at you."
+
+"Some young men have a way of staring here, Baron."
+
+A few minutes later a lady in a passing carriage looked round sharply at
+them with an air of great surprise, and half bowed.
+
+"Surely," exclaimed the Baron, "zat vas a frient of yours!"
+
+"I am not a friend of hers, then," Mr Bunker replied with a laugh. "Her
+bow I think must have been aimed at you."
+
+The Baron shook his head, and seemed to be drawing a moral.
+
+"Baron," his friend exclaimed, suddenly, "let us go back; here comes one
+of our most popular phenomena, a London fog. We need not stay in the Park
+to observe it."
+
+The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through
+the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves
+in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron
+railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from
+behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage
+in and out, and closed silently behind it again.
+
+"I like not zis," said the Baron, with a shiver.
+
+By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be
+seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a
+struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.
+
+Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar
+lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked
+nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab
+turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under
+it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his
+shoulder.
+
+In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and
+began to walk hastily back again.
+
+"Vat for zis?" said the Baron, in great astonishment.
+
+"We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the
+street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise,
+Baron, for my absence of mind."
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.
+
+"Like lookin' for a needle in a bloomin' haystack," he said to himself. "I
+might as well go back to Clankwood. 'E's a good riddance, I say."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of
+approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a
+second bottle; the Baron praised the _entrées_, and insisted on another
+helping. The frequent laughter arising from their table excited general
+remark throughout the room, and already the waiters were whispering to the
+other guests that this was a German nobleman of royal blood engaged in a
+diplomatic mission of importance, and his friend a ducal member of the
+English Cabinet, at present, for reasons of state, incognito.
+
+"Bonker!" exclaimed the Baron, "I am in zat frame of head I vant a
+romance, an adventure" (lowering his voice a little), "mit a beautiful
+lady, Bonker."
+
+"It must be a romance, Baron?"
+
+"A novel, a story to tell to mine frients. In a strange city man expects
+strange zings."
+
+"Well, I'll do my best for you, but I confess the provision of romantic
+adventures is a little outside the programme we've arranged."
+
+"Ha, ha! Ve shall see, ve shall see, Bonker!"
+
+They arrived at the Corinthian Theatre about the middle of the first act,
+for, as Mr Bunker explained, it is always well to produce a good first
+impression, and few more effective means can be devised than working one's
+way to the middle of a line of stalls with the play already in progress.
+
+Hardly were they seated when the Baron drove his elbow into his friend's
+ribs (draped for the night, it may be remarked, with one of the Baron's
+spare dress-coats) and exclaimed in an excited whisper, "Next to you,
+Bonker! Ach, zehr hüpsch!"
+
+Even before this hint Mr Bunker had observed that the lady on the other
+side of him was possessed of exceptional attractions. For a little time he
+studied her out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed that the stall on
+the farther side of her was empty, that she once or twice looked round as
+though she expected somebody, and that she seemed not altogether
+unconscious of her new neighbours. He further observed that her face was
+of a type that is more usually engaged in attack than defence.
+
+Then he whispered, "Would you like to know her?"
+
+"Ach, yah!" replied the Baron, eagerly. "Bot--can you?"
+
+Mr Bunker smiled confidently. A few minutes later he happened to let his
+programme fall into her lap.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he whispered, softly, and glanced into her eyes with
+a smile ready.
+
+His usual discernment had not failed him. She smiled, and instantly he
+produced his.
+
+A little later her opera-glasses happened to slip from her hand, and
+though they only slipped slowly, it was no doubt owing to his ready
+presence of mind that their fall was averted.
+
+This time their fingers happened to touch, and they smiled without an
+apology.
+
+He leant towards her, looking, however, at the play. They shared a laugh
+over a joke that she might have been excused for not understanding;
+presently a criticism of some situation escaped him inadvertently, and she
+smiled again; soon after she gave an exclamation and he answered
+sympathetically, and at the end of the act the curtain came down on an
+acquaintance already begun. As the lights were turned up, and here and
+there men began to go out, she again looked at the entrances in some
+apparent concern, either lest some one should not come in or lest some one
+should.
+
+"He is late," said Mr Bunker, smiling.
+
+She gave a very enticing look of surprise, and consented to smile back
+before she coyly looked away again.
+
+"An erring husband, I presume."
+
+She admitted that it was in fact a husband who had failed her.
+
+"But," she added, "I'm afraid--I mean I expect he'll come in after the next
+act. It's so tiresome of him to disappoint me like this."
+
+Mr Bunker expressed the deepest sympathy with her unfortunate predicament.
+
+"He has his ticket, of course?"
+
+But it seemed that she had both the tickets with her, an arrangement which
+he immediately denounced as likely to lead to difficulties when her
+husband arrived. He further, in the most obliging manner, suggested that
+he should take the ticket for the other seat to the booking office and
+leave instructions for its being given to the gentleman on his arrival.
+The lady gave him a curious little glance that seemed to imply a mixture
+of doubt as to his motives with confidence in his abilities, and then with
+many thanks agreed to his suggestion. Mr Bunker took the ticket and rose
+at once.
+
+"That I may be sure you are in good company while I am away," said he,
+"permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg."
+
+And the Baron promptly took his vacant seat.
+
+On his return Mr Bunker found his friend wreathed in smiles and engaged in
+the most animated conversation with the lady, and before the last act was
+over, he gathered from such scraps of conversation as reached his ears
+that Rudolph von Blitzenberg had little to learn in one department of a
+nobleman's duties.
+
+"I wonder where my husband can be," the lady whispered.
+
+"Ach, heed him not, fair lady," replied the Baron. "Am I not instead of a
+hosband?"
+
+"I'm afraid you're a very naughty man, Baron."
+
+"Ven I am viz you," the gallant Baron answered, "I forget myself all bot
+your charms."
+
+These advances being made in the most dulcet tones of which the nobleman
+was master, and accompanied by the most enamoured expression, it is not
+surprising that the lady permitted herself to listen to them with perhaps
+too ready an ear. What Mr Bunker's arrangement with the booking clerk had
+been was never quite clear, but certainly the erring husband failed to
+make his appearance at all, and at the last fall of the curtain she was
+easily persuaded to let the Baron escort her home.
+
+"I know I ought not, but if a husband deserts one so faithlessly, what can
+I do?" she said, with a very becoming little shrug of her shoulders and a
+captivating lift of her eyebrows.
+
+"Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort."
+
+"But won't it be troubling you?"
+
+"Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!"
+
+"Excuse me, Baron," said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow; "if you will
+wait here at the door I shall send up a cab."
+
+"Goot!" cried the Baron, "a zouzand zanks!"
+
+"I myself," added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady, "shall say
+good night now. The best of luck, Baron!"
+
+In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his
+charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.
+
+"Not too qvickly!" he added, in a stage aside.
+
+They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a
+marriage bell,--almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.
+
+"Why are we going down Whitehall?" the lady exclaimed, suddenly.
+
+"I know not," replied the Baron, placidly.
+
+"Ask him where he is going!" she said.
+
+The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply, "All right,
+sir," came back through the hole in the roof.
+
+"I seem to know that man's voice," the lady said. "He must have driven me
+before."
+
+"To me all ze English speak ze same," replied the Baron. "All bot you, my
+fairest, viz your sound like a--vat you call?--fiddle, is it?"
+
+Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman's
+topographical knowledge, the Baron's company proved so absorbing that it
+was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she
+at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most
+approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel
+concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the
+driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more
+reckless.
+
+"Can't you catch the reins?" cried the lady, who had got into a terrible
+fright.
+
+The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the
+knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady
+burst into tears. The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still
+the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets,
+past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown
+wilderness of brick.
+
+"Oh, don't let him murder me!" sobbed the lady.
+
+"Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze
+rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and
+blitzen! Haf courage, dear!"
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" wailed the lady. "I shall _never_ do it again!"
+
+They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when
+suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the
+frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady
+were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was
+rubbing his head some yards in front.
+
+"Teufel!" exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet. "Ach, mine
+dearest vun, art thou hurt?"
+
+The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she
+burst into hysterical laughter.
+
+"Ach, zo," said the Baron, much relieved, "zen vill I see ze cabman."
+
+That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the
+Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the
+sight of the driver's face he started back in blank astonishment.
+
+"Bonker!"
+
+"It is I indeed, my dear Baron," replied that gentleman, politely. "I must
+ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to
+your friend, I don't know how I am to make my peace with her."
+
+"Bot--bot vat means zis?" gasped the Baron.
+
+"I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required,
+besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady's better
+acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear
+lady, can I assist you in any way?"
+
+Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative
+answer.
+
+"Where are we?" asked the lady, who hovered between fright and
+indignation.
+
+Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It would be rash to hazard an opinion," he replied.
+
+"Well!" cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright. "Do
+you mean to say you've brought us here against our wills and probably got
+me into _dreadful_ trouble, and you don't even know where we are?"
+
+Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.
+
+"One _ought_ to be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of
+those stars," he replied; "but, to tell the truth, I don't quite know
+which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely
+through ignorance, that I cannot direct you."
+
+The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.
+
+"_You've_ helped to get me into this mess," she said, tartly. "What do you
+propose to do?"
+
+"My fairest----"
+
+"Don't!" she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then
+inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one
+another.
+
+"It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I'm afraid, is smashed beyond
+hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually
+arrive somewhere."
+
+There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be
+recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pass, they set out on
+foot. At last, after half an hour's ramble through the solitudes of South
+London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way
+home, the lady's indignation again gave way to fright.
+
+"What _am_ I to do? What _am_ I to do?" she wailed. "Oh, whatever will my
+husband say?"
+
+In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would
+make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so
+infectious was his assurance, that, when at last they reached Eaton
+Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron
+prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained, "My English, he is
+unsafe."
+
+After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an
+irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a
+dressing-gown.
+
+"Louisa!" he cried. "What the dev--where on earth have you been? The police
+are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is
+with you?"
+
+Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.
+
+"My dear sir," he said, "we found this lady in a lamentable state of
+intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a
+kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for
+you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain
+any longer. Good night," and raising his hat again he entered the cab and
+drove off, assuring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.
+
+"So you have had your adventure, Baron," he added, with a smile.
+
+For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful
+guffaw, "Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas
+pleasant vile it lasted!"
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+
+
+A few days passed in the most entertaining manner. A menu of amusements
+was regularly prepared suitable to a catholic taste, and at every turn the
+Baron was struck by the enterprise and originality of his friend. He had,
+however, a national bent for serious inquiry, and now and then doubts
+crossed his mind whether, with all his moral drawing, he was acquiring
+quite as much solid information as he had set out to gain. This idea grew
+upon him, till one morning, after gazing for some time at the English
+newspaper he always made a point of reading, he suddenly exclaimed,
+"Bonker, I haf a doubt!"
+
+"I have many," replied Mr Bunker; "in fact, I have few positive ideas
+left."
+
+"Bot mine is a particulair doubt. Do I lairn enoff?"
+
+"My own conception of enough learning, Baron, is a thing like a
+threepenny-bit--the smallest coin one can do one's marketing with."
+
+"And yet," said the Baron, solemnly, "for my own share, I am not
+satisfied. I vould lairn more of ze British institutions; so far I haf
+lairned of ze pleasures only."
+
+"My dear Baron, they are the British institutions."
+
+The Baron shook his head and fell to his paper again, while Mr Bunker
+stretched himself on the sofa and gazed through his cigar-smoke at the
+ceiling. Suddenly the Baron gave an exclamation of horror.
+
+"My dear Baron, what is the matter?"
+
+"Yet anozer outrage!" cried the Baron. "Zese anarchists, zey are too
+scandalous. At all ze stations zere are detectives, and all ze ships are
+being vatched. Ach, it is terrible!"
+
+Mr Bunker seemed struck with an idea, for he stared at the ceiling without
+making any reply, and his eyes, had the Baron seen them, twinkled
+curiously.
+
+At last the Baron laid down his paper.
+
+"Vell, vat shall ve do?" he asked.
+
+"Let us come first to Liverpool Street Station, if you don't mind, Baron,"
+his friend suggested. "I have something in the cloak-room there I want to
+pick up."
+
+"My dear Bonker, I shall go vere you vill; bot remember I vant to-day more
+instrogtion and less entertainment."
+
+"You wish to see the practical side of English life?"
+
+"Yah--zat is, yes."
+
+Mr Bunker smiled.
+
+"Then I must entertain myself."
+
+As they drove down he was in his wittiest humour, and the Baron, in spite
+of his desire for instruction, was more charmed with his friend than ever.
+
+"Vat fonny zing vill you do next, eh?" he asked, as they walked arm-in-arm
+into the station.
+
+"I am no more the humourist, my dear Baron,--I shall endeavour to edify
+you."
+
+They had arrived at a busy hour, when the platforms were crowded with
+passengers and luggage. A train had just come in, and around it the bustle
+was at its height, and the confusion most bewildering.
+
+"Wait for me here," said Mr Bunker; "I shall be back in a minute."
+
+He started in the direction of the cloak-room, and then, doubling back
+through the crowd, walked down the platform and stopped opposite a
+luggage-van. An old gentleman, beside himself with irritation, was
+struggling with the aid of a porter to collect his luggage, and presently
+he left the pile he had got together and made a rush in the direction of a
+large portmanteau that was just being tumbled out. Instantly Mr Bunker
+picked up a handbag from the heap and walked quickly off with it.
+
+"Here you are, Baron," he said, as he came up to his friend. "I find there
+is something else I must do, so do you mind holding this bag for a few
+minutes? If you will walk up and down in front of the refreshment-rooms
+here, I'll find you more easily. Is it troubling you too much?"
+
+"Not vun bit, Bonker. I am in your sairvice."
+
+He put the bag into the Baron's hand with his pleasantest smile, and
+turned away. Rounding a corner, he came cautiously back again through the
+crowd and stepped up to a policeman.
+
+"Keep your eye on that man, officer," he said, in a low confidential
+voice, and an air of quiet authority, "and put your plain clothes' men on
+his track. I know him for one of the most dangerous anarchists."
+
+The man started and stared hard at the Baron, and presently that
+unconscious nobleman, pacing the platform in growing wonder at Mr Bunker's
+lengthy absence, and looking anxiously round him on all sides, noticed
+with surprise that a number of quietly dressed men, with no apparent
+business in the station, were eyeing him with, it seemed to him, an
+interest that approached suspicion. In time he grew annoyed, he returned
+their glances with his haughtiest and most indignant look, and finally,
+stepping up to one of them, asked in no friendly voice, "Vat for do you
+vatch me?"
+
+The man returned an evasive answer, and passing one of his
+fellow-officers, whispered, "Foreign; I was sure of it."
+
+At last the Baron could stand it no longer, and laying the bag down by the
+door of the refreshment-room, turned hastily away. On the instant Mr
+Bunker, who had watched these proceedings from a safe distance, cried in a
+loud and agonised voice, "Down with your men, sergeant! Down, lie down! It
+will explode in twenty seconds!"
+
+And as he spoke he threw himself flat on his face. So infectious were his
+commanding voice and his note of alarm that one after another, detectives,
+passengers, and porters, cast themselves at full length on the platform.
+The Baron, filled with terror of anarchist plots, was one of the first to
+prostrate himself, and at that there could be no further doubt of the
+imminence of the peril.
+
+The cabs rattled and voices sounded from outside; an engine whistled and
+shunted at a far platform, but never before at that hour of the day had
+Liverpool Street Station been so silent. All held their breath and heard
+their hearts thump as they gazed in horrible fascination at that fatal
+bag, or with closed eyes stumbled through a hasty prayer. Fully a minute
+passed, and the suspense was growing intolerable, when with a loud oath an
+old gentleman rose to his feet and walked briskly up to the bag.
+
+"Have a care, sir! For Heaven's sake have a care!" cried Mr Bunker; but
+the old gentleman merely bent over the terrible object, and, picking it
+up, exclaimed in bewildered wrath, "It's my bag! Who the devil brought it
+here, and what's the meaning of this d--d nonsense?"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr Bunker; while like sheepish mushrooms the
+people sprang up on all sides.
+
+"My dear sir," said Mr Bunker, coming up to the old gentleman, and raising
+his hat with his most affable air, "permit me to congratulate you on
+recovering your lost property, and allow me further to introduce my friend
+the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg."
+
+"Baron von damned-humbug!" cried the old gentleman. "Did you take my bag,
+sir? and if so, are you a thief or a lunatic?"
+
+For an instant even Mr Bunker himself seemed a trifle taken aback; then he
+replied politely, "I am not a thief, sir."
+
+"Then what _'ave_ you been doing?" demanded the sergeant.
+
+"Merely demonstrating to my friend the Baron the extraordinary vigilance
+of the English police."
+
+For a time neither the old gentleman nor the sergeant seemed quite capable
+of taking the same view of the episode as Mr Bunker, and, curiously
+enough, the Baron seemed not disinclined to let his friend extricate
+himself as best he could. No one, however, could resist Mr Bunker, and
+before very long he and the Baron were driving up Bishopsgate Street
+together, with the old gentleman's four-wheeler lumbering in front of
+them.
+
+"Well, Baron, are you satisfied with your morning's instruction?" asked
+his friend.
+
+"A German nobleman is not used to be in soch a position," replied the
+Baron, stiffly.
+
+"You must admit, however, that the object-lesson in the detection of
+anarchy was neatly presented."
+
+"I admit nozing of ze kind," said the Baron, stolidly.
+
+For the rest of the drive he sat obdurately silent. He went to his room
+with the mien of an offended man. During lunch he only opened his lips to
+eat.
+
+On his side Mr Bunker maintained a cheerful composure, and seemed not a
+whit put about by his friend's lack of appreciation.
+
+"Anozzer bottle of claret," said the Baron, gruffly, to a waiter.
+
+Mr Bunker let him consume it entirely by himself, awaiting the results
+with patience. Gradually his face relaxed a little, until all at once,
+when the bump in the bottom of the bottle was beginning to appear above
+the wine, the whole room was startled by a stentorian, "Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"My dear Bonker!" cried the Baron, when he had finished laughing, "forgif
+me! I begin for to see ze moral, ha, ha, ha!"
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The Baron expressed no further wish for instruction, but, instead, he
+began to show a desire for society.
+
+"Doesn't one fool suffice?" his friend asked.
+
+"Ach, yes, my vise fool; ha, ha, ha! Bot sometimes I haf ze craving for
+peoples, museec, dancing--in vun vord, society, Bonker!"
+
+"But this is not the season, Baron. You wouldn't mix with any but the best
+society, would you?"
+
+"Zere are some nobles in town. In my paper I see Lord zis, Duke of zat, in
+London. Pairhaps my introdogtions might be here now."
+
+This suggestion seemed to strike Mr Bunker unfavourably.
+
+"My company is beginning to pall, is it, Baron?"
+
+"Ach, no, dear Bonker! I vould merely go out jost vunce or tvice. Haf you
+no friends now in town?"
+
+An idea seemed to seize Mr Bunker.
+
+"Let me see the paper," he said.
+
+After perusing it carefully for a little, he at last exclaimed in a tone
+of pleased discovery, "Hullo! I see that Lady Tulliwuddle is giving a
+reception and dance to-night. Most of the smart people in town just now
+are sure to be there. Would you care to go, Baron?"
+
+"Ach, surely," said the Baron, eagerly. "Bot haf you been invited,
+Bonker?"
+
+"Oh, I used to have a standing invitation to Lady Tulliwuddle's dances,
+and I'm certain she would be glad to see me again."
+
+"Can you take me?"
+
+"Of course, my dear Baron, she will be honoured."
+
+"Goot!" cried the Baron. "Ve shall go."
+
+Mr Bunker explained that it was the proper thing to arrive very late, and
+so it was not until after twelve o'clock that they left the Hôtel
+Mayonaise for the regions of Belgravia. The Baron, primed with a bottle of
+champagne, and arrayed in a costume which Mr Bunker had assured him was
+the very latest extreme of fashion, and which included a scarlet watered
+silk waistcoat, a pair of white silk socks, and a lavender tie, was in a
+condition of cheerfulness verging closely on hilarity. Mr Bunker, that, as
+he said, he might better serve as a foil to his friend's splendour, went
+more inconspicuously dressed, but was likewise well charged with
+champagne. He too was in his happiest vein, and the vision of the Baron's
+finery appeared to afford him peculiar gratification.
+
+Their hansom stopped in front of a large and gaily lit-up mansion, with an
+awning leading to the door, and a cluster of carriages and footmen by the
+kerbstone. They entered, and having divested themselves of their coats, Mr
+Bunker proposed that they should immediately seek the supper-room.
+
+"Bot should I not be first introduced to mine hostess?" asked the Baron.
+
+"My dear Baron! a formal reception of the guests is entirely foreign to
+English etiquette."
+
+"Zo? I did not know zat."
+
+The supper-room was crowded, and having secured a table with some
+difficulty, Mr Bunker entered immediately into conversation with a
+solitary young gentleman who was consuming a plate of oysters. Before they
+had exchanged six sentences the young man had entirely succumbed to Mr
+Bunker's address, aided possibly by the young man's supper.
+
+"Permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, a
+nobleman strange as yet to England, but renowned throughout his native
+land alike for his talents and his lofty position," said Mr Bunker.
+
+"Ach, my good friend," exclaimed the Baron, grasping the young man's hand,
+"das ist Bonker's vat you call nonsense; bot I am delighted, zehr
+delighted, to meet you, and if you gom to Bavaria you most shoot vid me!
+Bravo! Ha!"
+
+From which it may be gathered that the Baron was in a genial humour.
+
+"Who is that girl?" asked Mr Bunker, pointing to an extremely pretty
+damsel just leaving the room.
+
+"Oh, that's my cousin, Lady Muriel Hilton. She's thought rather pretty, I
+believe," answered the young man.
+
+"Do you mind introducing me?"
+
+"Certainly," said their new friend. "Come along."
+
+As they were passing through the room a little incident occurred that, if
+the Baron's perceptions had been keener, might have given him cause for
+some speculation. Two men standing by the door looked hard at Mr Bunker,
+and then at each other, and as the Baron passed them he heard one say, "It
+looks devilish like him."
+
+"He has shaved, then," said the other.
+
+"Evidently," replied the first speaker; "but I thought he was unlikely to
+appear in any society for some time."
+
+They both laughed, and the Baron heard no more.
+
+When they reached the ballroom the band was striking up a polka, and
+presently Mr Bunker, with his accustomed grace, was tearing round the room
+with Lady Muriel, while the Baron--the delight of all eyes in his red
+waistcoat--led out her sister. In a very short time the other dancers found
+the Baron and his friend's onslaught so vigorous that prudence compelled
+them to take shelter along the wall, and from a safe distance admire the
+evolutions of these two mysterious guests.
+
+Mr Bunker was enlivening the monotony of the polka by the judicious
+introduction of hornpipe steps, while the Baron, his coat-tails high above
+his head, shouted and stamped in his wild career.
+
+"Do stop for a minute, Baron," gasped his fair partner.
+
+"Himmel, nein!" roared the Baron. "I haf gom here for to dance! Ha,
+Bonker, ha!"
+
+At last Lady Muriel had to stop through sheer exhaustion, but Mr Bunker,
+merely letting her go, pursued his solitary way, double-shuffling and
+kicking unimpeded.
+
+The Baron stopped, breathless, to admire him. Round and round he went, the
+only figure in the middle of the room, his arms akimbo, his feet
+rat-tatting and kicking to the music, while high above the band resounded
+his friend's shouts of "Bravo, Bonker! Wunderschön! Gott in himmel,
+higher, higher!" till at length, missing the wall in an attempt to find
+support, the Baron dropped with a thud into a sitting posture and
+continued his demonstrations from the floor.
+
+Meanwhile their alarmed hostess was holding a hasty consultation with her
+husband, and when the music at last stopped and Mr Bunker was advancing
+with his most courteous air towards his late partner, Lord Tulliwuddle
+stepped up to him and touched his arm.
+
+"May I speak to you, sir?" he said.
+
+"Certainly," replied Mr Bunker. "I shall be honoured. Excuse me for one
+moment, Lady Muriel."
+
+"At whose invitation have you come here to-night?" demanded his host,
+sternly.
+
+"I have the pleasure of addressing Lord Tulliwuddle, have I not?"
+
+"You have, sir."
+
+Mr Bunker bent towards him and whispered something in his ear.
+
+"From Scotland Yard?" exclaimed his lordship.
+
+"Hush!" said Mr Bunker, glancing cautiously round the room, and then he
+added, with an air of impressive gravity, "You have a bathroom on the
+third floor, I believe?"
+
+"I have," replied his host in great surprise.
+
+"Has it a bell?"
+
+"No, I believe not."
+
+"Ah, I thought so. If you will favour me by coming up-stairs for a minute,
+my Lord, you will avoid a serious private scandal. Say nothing about it at
+present to any one."
+
+In blank astonishment and some alarm Lord Tulliwuddle went up with him to
+the third floor, where the house was still and the sounds of revelry
+reached faintly.
+
+"What does this mean, sir?" he asked.
+
+"If I am right in my conjectures you will need no explanation from me, my
+Lord."
+
+His lordship opened a door, and turning on an electric light, revealed a
+small and ordinary-looking bathroom.
+
+"Ha, no bell--excellent!" said Mr Bunker.
+
+"What are you doing with the key?" exclaimed his host.
+
+"Good night, my Lord. I shall tell them to send up breakfast at nine,"
+said Mr Bunker, and stepping quickly out, he shut and locked the door.
+
+A minute later he was back in the ballroom looking anxiously for the
+Baron, but that nobleman was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"The devil!" he said to himself. "Can they have tackled him too?"
+
+But as he ran downstairs a gust of cheerful laughter set his mind at ease.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! Vere is old Bonker? He also vill shoot vid me!"
+
+"Here I am, my dear Baron," he exclaimed gaily, as he tracked the voice
+into the supper-room.
+
+"Ach, mine dear Bonker!" cried the Baron, folding him in his muscular
+embrace, "I haf here met friends, ve are merry! Ve drink to Bavaria, to
+England, to everyzing!"
+
+The "friends" consisted of two highly amused young men and two
+half-scandalised, half-hysterical ladies, into the midst of whose
+supper-table the Baron had projected himself with infectious hilarity.
+They all looked up with great curiosity at Mr Bunker, but that gentleman
+was not in the least put about. He bowed politely to the table generally,
+and took his friend by the arm.
+
+"It is time we were going, Baron, I'm afraid," he said.
+
+"Vat for? Ah, not yet, Bonker, not yet. I am enjoying myself down to ze
+floor. I most dance again, Bonker, jost vunce more," pleaded the Baron.
+
+"My dear Baron, the noblemen of highest rank must always leave first, and
+people are talking of going now. Come along, old man."
+
+"Ha, is zat so?" said the Baron. "Zen vill I go. Good night!" he cried,
+waving his hand to the room generally. "Ven you gom to Bavaria you most
+all shoot vid me. Bravo, my goot Bonker! Ha! ha!"
+
+As they turned away from the table, one of the young men, who had been
+looking very hard at Mr Bunker, rose and touched his sleeve.
+
+"I say, aren't you----?" he began.
+
+"Possibly I am," interrupted Mr Bunker, "only I haven't the slightest
+recollection of the fact."
+
+An astonished lady was indicated by Mr Bunker as the hostess, and to her
+the Baron bade an affectionate adieu. He handed a sovereign to the
+footman, embraced the butler, and as they sped eastwards in their hansom,
+a rousing chorus from the two friends awoke the echoes of Piccadilly.
+
+"Bravo, Bonker! Himmel, I haf enjoyed myself!" sighed the exhausted Baron.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed a twelve o'clock breakfast with the
+relish of men who had done a good night's work. The Baron was full of his
+exploits. "Ze lofly Lady Hilton" and his new "friends" seemed to have made
+a vivid impression.
+
+"Zey vill be in ze Park to-day, of course?" he suggested.
+
+"Possibly," replied Mr Bunker, without any great enthusiasm.
+
+"But surely."
+
+"After a dance it is rather unlikely."
+
+"Ze Lady Hilton did say she vent to ze Park."
+
+"To-day, Baron?"
+
+"I do not remember to-day. I did dance so hard I was not perhaps distinct.
+But I shall go and see."
+
+As Mr Bunker's attempts to throw cold water on this scheme proved quite
+futile, he made a graceful virtue of necessity, dressed himself with care,
+and set out in the afternoon for the Park. They had only walked as far as
+Piccadilly Circus when in the crowd at the corner his eye fell upon a
+familiar figure. It was the burly, red-faced man.
+
+"The devil! Moggridge again!" he muttered.
+
+For a moment he thought they were going to pass unobserved: then the man
+turned his head their way, and Mr Bunker saw him start. He never looked
+over his shoulder, but after walking a little farther he called the
+Baron's attention to a shop window, and they stopped to look at it. Out of
+the corner of his eye he saw Moggridge about twenty yards behind them
+stopping too. He was glancing towards them very doubtfully. Evidently his
+mind was not yet made up, and at once Mr Bunker's fertile brain began to
+revolve plans.
+
+A little farther on they paused before another window, and exactly the
+same thing happened. Then Mr Bunker made up his mind. He looked carefully
+at the cabs, and at last observed a smart-looking young man driving a
+fresh likely horse at a walking pace beside the pavement.
+
+He caught the driver's eye and raised his stick, and turning suddenly to
+the Baron with a gesture of annoyance, exclaimed, "Forgive my rudeness,
+Baron, I'm afraid I must leave you. I had clean forgotten an important
+engagement in the city for this afternoon."
+
+"Appointment in ze city?" said the Baron in considerable surprise. "I did
+not know you had friends in ze city."
+
+"I have just heard from my father's man of business, and I'm afraid it
+would be impolitic not to see him. Do you mind if I leave you here?"
+
+"Surely, my dear fellow, I vould not stop you. Already I feel at home by
+myself."
+
+"Then we shall meet at the hotel before dinner. Good luck with the ladies,
+Baron."
+
+Mr Bunker jumped into the cab, saying only to the driver, "To the city, as
+quick as you can."
+
+"What part, sir?"
+
+"Oh, say the Bank. Hurry up!"
+
+Then as the man whipped up, Mr Bunker had a glimpse of Moggridge hailing
+another cab, and peeping cautiously through the little window at the back
+he saw him starting in hot pursuit. He took five shillings out of his
+pocket and opened the trap-door in the roof.
+
+"Do you see that other cab chasing us, with a red-faced man inside?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Mr Bunker handed his driver the money.
+
+"Get rid of him, then. Take me anywhere through the city you like, and
+when he's off the scent let me know."
+
+"Very good, sir," replied the driver, cracking his whip till his steed
+began to move past the buses and the other cabs like a train.
+
+On they flew, clatter and jingle, twisting like a snipe through the
+traffic. Mr Bunker perceived that he had a good horse and a good driver,
+and he smiled in pleasant excitement. He lit a cigar, leaned his arms on
+the doors, and settled himself to enjoy the race.
+
+The black lions of Trafalgar Square flew by, then the colossal hotels of
+Northumberland Avenue and the railway bridge at Charing Cross, and they
+were going at a gallop along the Embankment. He got swift glimpses of
+other cabs and foot-passengers, the trees seemed to flit past like
+telegraph-posts on a railway, the barges and lighters on the river dropped
+one by one behind them: it was a fair course for a race, with never a
+check before Blackfriar's Bridge.
+
+As they turned into Queen Victoria Street he opened the lid and asked,
+"Are they still in sight?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I'm afraid we ain't gaining much yet. But I'll do it, sir, no
+fears."
+
+Mr Bunker lay back and laughed.
+
+"This is better than the Park," he said to himself.
+
+They had a fine drive up Queen Victoria Street before they plunged into
+the whirlpool of traffic at the Bank. They were slowly making their way
+across when the driver, spying an opening in another stream, abruptly
+wheeled round for Cornhill, and presently they were off again at top
+speed.
+
+"Thrown them off?" asked Mr Bunker.
+
+"Tried to, sir, but they were too sharp and got clear away too."
+
+Mr Bunker saw that it was going to be a stern chase, and laughed again. In
+order that he might not show ostensibly that he was running away, he
+resisted the temptation of having another peep through the back, and
+resigned himself to the chances of the chase.
+
+Through and through the lanes and byways of the city they drove, and after
+each double the answer from the box was always the same. The cab behind
+could not be shaken off.
+
+"Work your way round to Holborn and try a run west," Mr Bunker suggested.
+
+So after a little they struck Newgate Street, and presently their steed
+stretched himself again in Holborn Viaduct.
+
+"Gaining now, cabby?"
+
+"A little, sir, I think."
+
+Mr Bunker sat placidly till they were well along Holborn before he
+inquired again.
+
+"Can't get rid of 'im no 'ow. Afride it ain't much good, sir."
+
+Mr Bunker passed up five shillings more.
+
+"Keep your tail up. You'll do it yet," he exhorted. "Try a turn north; you
+may bother him among the squares."
+
+So they doubled north, and as the evening closed in their wearied horse
+was lashed through a maze of monotonous streets and tarnished Bloomsbury
+Squares. And still the other cab stuck to their trail. But when they
+emerged on the Euston Road, Mr Bunker was as cheerful as ever.
+
+"They can't last much longer," he said to his driver. "Turn up Regent's
+Park way."
+
+A little later he put the usual question and got the same unvarying
+answer.
+
+The horse was evidently beginning to fail, and he saw that this
+chariot-race must soon come to an end. The street-lamps and the shop
+windows were all lit up by this time, and the dusk was pretty thick. It
+seemed to him that he might venture to try his luck on foot, and he began
+to look out for an opening where a cab could not follow.
+
+They were flogging along a noisy stone-paved road where there was little
+other traffic; on one side stood an unbroken row of houses, and on the
+other were small semi-detached villas with little strips of garden about
+them. All at once he saw a doctor's red lamp over the door of one of these
+half villas, and an inspiration came upon him.
+
+"One can always visit a doctor," he said to himself, and smiled in great
+amusement at something in the reflection.
+
+He stopped the cab, handed the man half a sovereign, and saying only,
+"Drive away again, quickly," jumped out, glanced at the name on the plate,
+and pulled the bell. As he waited on the step he saw the other cab stop a
+little way back, and his pursuer emerge.
+
+A frowsy little servant opened the door.
+
+"Is Dr Twiddel at home?" he asked.
+
+"Dr Twiddel's abroad, sir," said the maid.
+
+"No one in at all, then?"
+
+"Dr Billson sees 'is patients, sir--w'en there _his_ any."
+
+"When do you expect Dr Billson?"
+
+"In about an hour, sir, 'e usually comes hin."
+
+"Excellent!" thought Mr Bunker. Aloud he said, "Well, I'm a patient. I'll
+come in and wait."
+
+He stepped in, and the door banged behind him.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+"This w'y, sir," said the maid, and Mr Bunker found himself in the little
+room where this story opened.
+
+The moment he was alone he went to the window and peeped cautiously
+between the slats of the venetian blind.
+
+The street was quiet, both cabs had disappeared, and for a minute or two
+he could see nothing even of Moggridge. Then a figure moved carefully from
+the shelter of a bush a little way down the railings, and, after a quick
+look at the house, stepped back again.
+
+"He means to play the waiting game," said Mr Bunker to himself. "Long may
+you wait, my wary Moggridge!"
+
+He took a rapid survey of the room. He saw the medical library, the rented
+furniture, and the unlit gas-stove; and at last his eye fell upon a box of
+cigarettes. To one of these he helped himself and leaned his back against
+the mantelpiece.
+
+"There must be at least one room at the back," he reflected; "that room
+must have a window, and beyond that window there is all London to turn to.
+Friend Moggridge, I trust you are prepared to spend the evening behind
+your bush."
+
+He had another look through the blind and shook his head.
+
+"A little too light yet,--I'd better wait for a quarter of an hour or so."
+
+To while away the time he proceeded to make a tour of the room, for, as he
+said to himself, when in an unknown country any information may possibly
+come in useful. There was nothing whatever from which he could draw even
+the most superficial deduction till he came to the writing-desk. Here a
+heap of bills were transfixed by a long skewer, and at his first glance at
+the uppermost his face assumed an expression of almost ludicrous
+bewilderment. He actually rubbed his eyes before he looked a second time.
+
+"One dozen shirts," he read, "four under-flannels, four pair socks, one
+dozen handkerchiefs, two sleeping-suits--marked Francis Beveridge! the
+account rendered to Dr G. Twiddel! What in the name of wonderment is the
+meaning of this?"
+
+He sat down with the bill in his hand and gazed hard at it.
+
+"Precisely my outfit," he said to himself.
+
+"Am I--Does it----? What a rum thing!"
+
+He sat for about ten minutes looking hard at the floor. Then he burst out
+laughing, resumed in a moment his air of philosophical opportunism, and
+set about a further search of the desk. He looked at the bills and seemed
+to find nothing more to interest him. Then he glanced at one or two
+letters in the drawers, threw the first few back again, and at last paused
+over one.
+
+"Twiddel to Billson," he said to himself. "This may possibly be worth
+looking at."
+
+It was dated more than a month back from the town of Fogelschloss.
+
+"Dear Tom," it ran, "we are having an A 1 time. Old Welsh is in splendid
+form, doing the part to perfection. He has never given himself away yet,
+not even when drunk, which, I am sorry to say, he has been too often. But
+then old Welsh is so funny when he is drunk that it makes him all the more
+like the original, or at least what the original is supposed to be.
+
+"Of course we don't dare to venture into places where we would see too
+many English. This is quite an amusing place for a German town, some baths
+and a kind of a gambling-table, and some pretty girls--for Germans. There
+is a sporting aristocrat here, in an old castle, who is very friendly, and
+is much impressed with Welsh's account of his family plate and
+deer-forest, and has asked us once or twice to come out and see him. We
+are no end of swells, I assure you.
+
+"Ta, ta, old chap. Hope the practice prospers in your hands. Don't kill
+_all_ the patients before I come back.--Ever thine,
+
+                                                          GEORGE TWIDDEL."
+
+"From this I conclude that Dr Twiddel is on the festive side of forty," he
+reflected; "there are elements of mystery and a general atmosphere of
+alcohol about it, but that's all, I'm afraid."
+
+He put it back in the drawer, but the bill he slipped into his pocket.
+
+"And now," thought he, "it is time I made the first move."
+
+After waiting for a minute or two to make sure that everything was quiet,
+he gently stepped out into a little linoleum-carpeted hall. On the right
+hand was the front door, on the left two others that must, he thought,
+open into rooms on the back. He chose the nearer at a venture, and entered
+boldly. It was quite dark. He closed the door again softly, struck a
+match, and looked round the room. It seemed to be Dr Twiddel's dining- and
+sitting-room.
+
+"Pipes, photographs, well-sat-in chairs," he observed, "_and_ a window."
+
+He pulled aside the blind and looked out into the darkness of a strip of
+back-garden. For a minute he listened intently, but no sound came from the
+house. Then he threw up the sash and scrambled out. It was quite dark by
+this time: he was enclosed between two rows of vague, black houses, with
+bright windows here and there, and chimney-cans faintly cutting their
+uncouth designs among a few pale London stars. The space between was
+filled with the two lines of little gardens and the ranks of walls, and in
+the middle the black chasm of a railway cutting.
+
+A frightened cat bolted before him as he hurried down to the foot of the
+strip, but that was all the life he saw. He looked over the wall right
+into the deep crevasse. A little way off, on the one hand, hung a cluster
+of signal-lights, and the shining rails reflected them all along to the
+mouth of a tunnel on the other. Turning his head this way and that, there
+was nothing to be seen anywhere else but garden wall after garden wall.
+
+"It's a choice between a hurdle-race through these gardens, a cat-walk
+along this wall, and a descent into the cutting," he reflected. "The walls
+look devilish high and the cutting devilish deep. Hang me if I know which
+road to take."
+
+While he was still debating this somewhat perplexing question, he felt the
+ground begin to quiver under him. Through the hum of London there
+gradually arose a louder roar, and in a minute the head-lights of an
+engine flashed out of the tunnel. One after another a string of bright
+carriages followed it, each more slowly than the carriage in front, till
+the whole train was at a standstill below him with the red signal-lamp
+against it.
+
+In an instant his decision was taken. At the peril of life and garments he
+scrambled down the rocky bank, picking as he went an empty first-class
+compartment, and just as the train began to move again he swung himself up
+and sprang into a carriage.
+
+Unfortunately he had chosen the wrong one in his haste, and as he opened
+the door he saw a comical vision of a stout little old gentleman huddling
+into the farther corner in the most dire consternation.
+
+"Who are you, sir? What do you want, sir?" spluttered the old gentleman.
+"If you come any nearer me, sir--one step, sir!--I shall instantly
+communicate with the guard! I have no money about me. Go away, sir!"
+
+"I regret to learn that you have no money," replied Mr Bunker,
+imperturbably; "but I am sorry that I am not at present in a condition to
+offer a loan."
+
+He sat down and smiled amicably, but the little gentleman was not to be
+quieted so easily. Seeing that no violence was apparently intended, his
+fright changed into respectable indignation.
+
+"You needn't try to be funny with me, sir. You are committing an illegal
+act. You have placed yourself in an uncommonly serious position, sir."
+
+"Indeed, sir?" replied Mr Bunker. "I myself should have imagined that by
+remaining on the rails I should have been much more seriously situated."
+
+The old gentleman looked at him like an angry small dog that longs to bite
+if it only dared.
+
+"What is the meaning of this illegal intrusion?" he demanded. "Who are
+you? Where did you come from?"
+
+"I had the misfortune, sir," explained Mr Bunker, politely, "to drop my
+hat out of the window of a neighbouring carriage. While I was picking it
+up the train started, and I had to enter the first compartment I could
+find. I am sorry that my entry frightened you."
+
+"Frightened me!" spluttered the old gentleman. "I am not afraid, sir. I am
+an honest man who need fear no one, sir. I do not believe you dropped your
+hat. It is perfectly uninjured."
+
+"It may be news to you, sir," replied Mr Bunker, "that by gently yet
+firmly passing the sleeve of your coat round your hat in the direction of
+the nap, it is possible to restore the gloss. Thus," and suiting the
+action to the word he took off his hat, drew his coat-sleeve across it,
+and with a genial smile at the old gentleman, replaced it on his head.
+
+But his neighbour was evidently of that truculent disposition which merely
+growls at blandishments. He snorted and replied testily, "That is all very
+well, sir, but I don't believe a word of it."
+
+"If you prefer it, then, I fell off the telegraph wires in an attempt to
+recover my boots."
+
+The old gentleman became purple in the face.
+
+"Have a care, sir! I am a director of this company, and at the next
+station I shall see that you give a proper account of yourself. And here
+we are, sir. I trust you have a more credible story in readiness."
+
+As he spoke they drew up beside an underground platform, and the irascible
+old gentleman, with a very threatening face that was not yet quite cleared
+of alarm, bustled out in a prodigious hurry. Mr Bunker lay back in his
+seat and replied with a smile, "I shall be delighted to tell any story
+within the bounds of strict propriety."
+
+But the moment he saw the irate director disappear in the crowd he whipped
+out too, and with the least possible delay transferred himself into a
+third-class carriage.
+
+From his seat near the window he watched the old gentleman hurry back with
+three officials at his heels, and hastily search each first-class
+compartment in turn. The last one was so near him that he could hear his
+friend say, "Damn it, the rascal has bolted in the crowd!" And with that
+the four of them rushed off to the barrier to intercept or pursue this
+suspicious character. Then the whistle blew, and as the train moved off Mr
+Bunker remarked complacently, if a little mysteriously, to himself, "Well,
+whoever I am, it would seem I'm rather difficult to catch."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Mr Bunker arrived at the Hôtel Mayonaise in what, from his appearance, was
+an unusually reflective state of mind for him. The other visitors, many of
+whom had begun to regard him and his noble friend with great interest, saw
+him pass through the crowd in the hall and about the lifts with a
+thoughtful air. He went straight to the Baron's room. Outside the door he
+paused for an instant to set his face in a cheerful smile, and then burst
+gaily in upon his friend.
+
+"Well, my dear Baron!" he cried, "what luck in the Park?"
+
+The Baron was pulling his moustache over an English novel. He laid down
+his book and frowned at Mr Bunker.
+
+"I do not onderstand your English vays," he replied.
+
+Mr Bunker perceived that something was very much amiss, nor was he without
+a suspicion of the cause. He laughed, however, and asked, "What's the
+matter, old man?"
+
+"I vent to ze Park," said the Baron, with a solemn deliberation that
+evidently came hardly to him. "I entered ze Park. I vas dressed, as you
+know, viz taste and appropriety. I vas sober, as you know. I valked under
+ze trees, and I looked agreeably at ze people. Goddam!"
+
+"My dear Baron!" expostulated Mr Bunker.
+
+The Baron resumed his intense composure with a great effort.
+
+"Not long vas ven I see ze Lady Hilton drive past mit ze ozzer Lady Hilton
+and vun old lady. I raise my hat--no bow from zem. 'Pairhaps,' I zink, 'zey
+see me not.' Zey stop by ze side to speak viz a gentleman. I gomed up and
+again I raise my hat and I say, 'How do you do, Lady Hilton? I hope you
+are regovered from ze dance.' Zat was gorrect, vas it not?"
+
+"Perfectly," replied Mr Bunker, with great gravity.
+
+"Zen vy did ze Lady Hilton schream and ze ozzer Lady Hilton cry, 'Ach, zat
+German man!' And vy did ze old lady schream to ze gentleman, 'Send him
+avay! How dare you? Insolence!' and suchlike vords?"
+
+"What remarkable conduct, my dear Baron!" said Mr Bunker.
+
+"Remargable!" roared the justly incensed Baron. "Is it not more zan
+_remargable?_ Donner und blitzen! Mon Dieu! Blood! I know not ze English
+vord so bad enoff for soch conduct."
+
+"It must have been a joke," his friend suggested, soothingly.
+
+"Vun dashed bad joke, zen! Ze gentleman said to me, 'Get out of zis, you
+rasgal!' 'Vat mean you, sare?' say I. 'You know quite vell,' said he.
+'Glear out!' So I gave him my card and tell him I would be glad to see his
+frient zat he should send, for zat I vas not used to be called zo. Zen I
+raise my hat to ze Lady Hilton and say, 'Adieu, madame, I know now ze
+English lady,' and I valk on. Himmel!"
+
+"What a very extraordinary affair, Baron!"
+
+The Baron grunted with inarticulate indignation and nearly pulled his
+moustache out by the roots. Abruptly he broke out again, "English ladies?
+I do not believe zey are ladies! Never haf I been treated zo! Vat do you
+mean, Bonker, by taking me among soch peoples?"
+
+"_I_, my dear Baron? It was not I who introduced you to the Hiltons. I
+never saw them before."
+
+The difficulty of attaching any blame to his friend seemed to have
+anything but a soothing effect on the Baron. You could almost fancy that
+you heard his tail lash the floor.
+
+"Zat vas not all," he continued, after a short struggle with his wrath. "I
+valked on, and soon I see two of ze frients I made last night at supper."
+
+"Which two?"
+
+"Ze yong man zat spoke to you ven you rise from ze table, and vun of ze
+ladies. Again I raise my hat and say, 'How do you do? I hope zat you are
+regovered from ze dance.' Zat is gorrect, you say?"
+
+"Under most circumstances."
+
+"Ze man stared at me, and ze voman--I vill not say lady--says to him zo zat
+I can hear, 'Zat awful German!' Ze man says, 'Zo it is,' and laughed. 'I
+haf ze pleasure of meeting you last night at ze Lady Tollyvoddle,' I said.
+'I remember,' he said; 'but I haf no vish to meet you again.' I take out
+my card to gif him, but he only said, 'Go avay, or I vill call ze police!'
+'Ze police! To me, Baron von Blitzenberg! Teufel!' I replied."
+
+"And that was all, Baron?" asked Mr Bunker, in what seemed rather like a
+tone of relief.
+
+"No; suddenly he did turn back and said, 'By ze vay, who vas zat viz you
+last night?' To vich I replied, 'If you address me again, my man, I vill
+call ze police. Go avay!' "
+
+"Bravo, Baron! Ha, ha, ha! Excellent!" laughed Mr Bunker.
+
+This applause served to reinstate the Baron a little in his own good
+opinion. He laughed too, though rather noisily than heartily, and suddenly
+became grave again.
+
+"Vat means zis, Bonker? Vat haf I done? Vy should zey treat me zo?"
+
+"Well, you see, my dear Baron," his friend explained, "I ought to have
+warned you that it is not usual in England to address ladies you have met
+at a dance without some direct invitation on their part. At the same time,
+it is evident that the Hiltons and the other man, who of course must be
+connected with the Foreign Office, are aware of some sudden strain in the
+diplomatic relations between England and Germany, which as yet is unknown
+to the public. Your ancient name and your high rank have naturally led
+them to conclude that you are an agent of the German Government, and an
+international significance was of course attached to your presence in the
+Park. I certainly think they took a most outrageous advantage of a
+trifling detail of etiquette to repulse you; but then you must remember,
+Baron, that their families might have been seriously compromised with the
+Government if they had been seen with so prominent a member of the German
+aristocracy in the middle of Hyde Park."
+
+"Zo?" said the Baron, thoughtfully. "I begin to onderstand. My name, as
+you say, is cairtainly distinguished. Bot zen should I remain in London?"
+
+"Just what I was wondering, Baron. What do you say to a trip down to St
+Egbert's-on-Sea? It's a very select watering-place, and we might spend a
+week or two there very pleasantly."
+
+"Egxellent!" said the Baron; "ven shall we start?"
+
+"To-morrow morning."
+
+"Goot! zo let it be. I am tired of London and of ze English ladies'
+manners. Police to ze Baron von Blitzenberg! Ve shall go to St Egbert's,
+Bonker!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                                PART III.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The Baron and Mr Bunker walked arm-in-arm along the esplanade at St
+Egbert's-on-Sea.
+
+"Aha!" said the Baron, "zis is more fresh zan London!"
+
+"Yes," replied his friend; "we are now in the presence of that stimulating
+element which provides patriotic Britons with music-hall songs, and
+dyspeptic Britons with an appetite."
+
+A stirring breeze swept down the long white esplanade, threatening hats
+and troubling skirts; the pale-green south-coast sea rumbled up the
+shingle; the day was bright and pleasant for the time of year, and drove
+the Baron's mischances from his head; altogether it seemed to Mr Bunker
+that the omens were good. They were both dressed in the smartest of tweed
+suits, and walked jauntily, like men who knew their own value. Every now
+and then, as they passed a pretty face, the Baron would say, "Aha, Bonker!
+zat is not so bad, eh?"
+
+And Mr Bunker, who seemed not unwilling that his friend should find some
+entertaining distraction in St Egbert's, would look at the owners of these
+faces with a prospector's eye and his own unrivalled assurance.
+
+They had walked up and down three or four times, when a desire for a
+different species of diversion began to overtake the Baron. It was the one
+kind of desire that the Baron never even tried to wrestle with.
+
+"My vriend Bonker," said he, "is it not somevere about time for loncheon,
+eh?"
+
+"I should say it was precisely the hour."
+
+"Ha, ha! zen, let us gom and eat. Himmel, zis sea is ze fellow to make von
+hungry!"
+
+The Baron had taken a private suite of rooms on the first floor of the
+best hotel in St Egbert's, and after a very substantial lunch Mr Bunker
+stretched himself on the luxurious sitting-room sofa and announced his
+intention of having a nap.
+
+"I shall go out," said the Baron. "You vill not gom?"
+
+"I shall leave you to make a single-handed conquest," replied Mr Bunker.
+"Besides, I have a little matter I want to look into."
+
+So the Baron arranged his hat airily, at what he had perceived to be the
+most fashionable and effective English angle, and strutted off to the
+esplanade.
+
+It was about two hours later that he burst excitedly into the room,
+crying, "Aha, mine Bonker! I haf disgovered zomzing!" and then he stopped
+in some surprise. "Ello, vat make you, my vriend?"
+
+His friend, in fact, seemed to be somewhat singularly employed. Through a
+dense cloud of tobacco-smoke you could just pick him out of the depths of
+an armchair, his feet resting on the mantelpiece, while his lap and all
+the floor round about were covered with immense books. The Baron's
+curiosity was still further excited by observing that they consisted
+principally of a London and a St Egbert's directory, several volumes of a
+Dictionary of National Biography, and one or two peerages and county
+family compilations.
+
+He looked up with a smile. "You may well wonder, my dear Baron. The fact
+is, I am looking for a name."
+
+"A name! vat name?"
+
+"Alas! if I knew what it was I should stop looking, and I confess I'm
+rather sick of the job."
+
+"Vich vay do you look, zen?"
+
+"Simply by wading my way through all the lists of names I could steal or
+borrow. It's devilish dry work."
+
+"Ze name of a vriend, is it?"
+
+"Yes; but I'm afraid I must wait till it comes. And what is this
+discovery, Baron? A petticoat, I presume. After all, they are the only
+things worth finding," and he shut the books one after another.
+
+"A petticoat with ze fairest girl inside it!" exclaimed the Baron,
+rapturously.
+
+"Your eyes seem to have been singularly penetrating, Baron. Was she dark
+or fair, tall or short, fat or slender, widow, wife, or maid?"
+
+"Fair, viz blue eyes, short pairhaps but not too short, slender as
+a--a--drom-stick, and I vould say a maid; at least I see vun stout old lady
+mit her, mozzer and daughter I soppose."
+
+"And did this piece of perfection seem to appreciate you?"
+
+"Vy should I know? Zey are ze real ladies and pairtend not to see me, bot
+I zink zey notice me all ze same. Not 'lady vriends,' Bonker, ha, ha, ha!"
+
+Mr Bunker laughed with reminiscent amusement, and inquired, "And how did
+the romance end--in a cab, Baron?"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Baron; "better zan zat, Bonker--moch better!"
+
+Mr Bunker raised his eyebrows.
+
+"It's hardly the time of year for a romance to end in a bathing-machine.
+You followed the divinity to her rented heaven, perhaps?"
+
+The Baron bent forward and answered in a stage whisper, "Zey live in zis
+hotel, Bonker!"
+
+"Then I can only wish you joy, Baron, and if my funds allow me, send her a
+wedding present."
+
+"Ach, not quite so fast, my vriend! I am not caught so easy."
+
+"My dear fellow, a week at close quarters is sufficient to net any man."
+
+"Ven I marry," replied the Baron, "moch most be considered. A von
+Blitzenberg does not mate viz every vun."
+
+"A good many families have made the same remark, but one does not always
+meet the fathers-in-law."
+
+"Ha, ha! ve shall see. Bot, Bonker, she is lofly!"
+
+The Baron awaited dinner with even more than his usual ardour. He dressed
+with the greatest care, and at an absurdly early hour was already urging
+his friend to come down and take their places. Indeed after a time there
+was no withholding him, and they finally took their seats in the
+dining-room before anybody else.
+
+At what seemed to the impatient Baron unconscionably long intervals a few
+people dropped in and began to study their menus and glance with an air of
+uncomfortable suspicion at their neighbours.
+
+"I vonder vill she gom," he said three or four times at least.
+
+"Console yourself, my dear Baron," his friend would reply; "they always
+come. That's seldom the difficulty."
+
+And the Baron would dally with his victuals in the most unwonted fashion,
+and growl at the rapidity with which the courses followed one another.
+
+"Do zey suppose ve vish to eat like----?" he began, and then laying his hand
+on his friend's sleeve, he whispered, "She goms!"
+
+Mr Bunker turned his head just in time to see in the doorway the Countess
+of Grillyer and the Lady Alicia à Fyre.
+
+"Is she not fair?" asked the Baron, excitedly.
+
+"I entirely approve of your taste, Baron. I have only once seen any one
+quite like her before."
+
+With a gratified smile the Baron filled his glass, while his friend seemed
+amused by some humorous reflection of his own.
+
+The Lady Alicia and her mother had taken their seats at a table a little
+way off, and at first their eyes never happened to turn in the direction
+of the two friends. But at last, after looking at the ceiling, the carpet,
+the walls, the other people, everything else in the room it seemed, Lady
+Alicia's glance fell for an instant on the Baron. That nobleman looked as
+interesting as a mouthful of roast duck would permit him, but the glance
+passed serenely on to Mr Bunker. For a moment it remained serene; suddenly
+it became startled and puzzled, and at that instant Mr Bunker turned his
+own eyes full upon her, smiled slightly, and raised his glass to his lips.
+
+The glance fell, and the Lady Alicia blushed down to the diamonds in her
+necklace.
+
+The Baron insisted on lingering over his dinner till the charmer was
+finished, and so by a fortuitous coincidence they left the room
+immediately behind the Countess. The Baron passed them in the passage, and
+a few yards farther he looked round for his friend, and the Countess
+turned to look for her daughter.
+
+They saw Lady Alicia following with an intensely unconscious expression,
+while Mr Bunker was in the act of returning to the dining-room.
+
+"I wanted to secure a table for breakfast," he explained.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The Baron was in high hopes of seeing the fair unknown at breakfast, but
+it seemed she must be either breakfasting in her own room or lying long
+abed.
+
+"I think I shall go out for a little constitutional," said Mr Bunker, when
+he had finished. "I suppose the hotel has a stronger attraction for you."
+
+"Ach, yes, I shall remain," his friend replied. "Pairhaps I may see zem."
+
+"Take care then, Baron!"
+
+"I shall not propose till you return, Bonker!"
+
+"No," said Mr Bunker to himself, "I don't think you will."
+
+Just outside St Egbert's there is a high breezy sweep of downs, falling
+suddenly to a chalky seaward cliff. It overlooks the town and the
+undulating inland country and a great spread of shining sea; and even
+without a spy-glass you can see sail after sail and smoke-wreath after
+smoke-wreath go by all day long.
+
+But Mr Bunker had apparently walked there for other reasons than to see
+the view. He did stop once or twice, but it was only to scan the downs
+ahead, and at the sight of a fluttering skirt he showed no interest in
+anything else, but made a straight line for its owner. For her part, the
+lady seemed to await his coming. She gathered her countenance into an
+expression of as perfect unconcern as a little heightening of her colour
+would allow her, and returned his salute with rather a distant bow. But Mr
+Bunker was not to be damped by this hint of barbed wire. He held out his
+hand and exclaimed cordially, "My dear Lady Alicia! this is charming of
+you!"
+
+"Of course you understand, Mr Beveridge, it's only----"
+
+"Perfectly," he interrupted, gaily; "I understand everything I should and
+nothing I shouldn't. In fact, I have altered little, except in the
+trifling matter of a beard, a moustache or two, and, by the way, a name."
+
+"A name?"
+
+"I am now Francis Bunker, but as much at your service as ever."
+
+"But why--I mean, have you really changed your name?"
+
+"Circumstances have changed it, just as circumstances shaved me."
+
+Lady Alicia made a great endeavour to look haughty. "I do not quite
+understand, Mr----"
+
+"Bunker--a temporary title, but suggestive, and simple for the tradesmen."
+
+"I do not understand your conduct. Why have you changed your name?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+This retort was so evidently unanswerable that Lady Alicia changed her
+inquiry.
+
+"Where have you been?"
+
+"Till yesterday, in London."
+
+"Then you didn't go to your own parish?" she demanded, reproachfully.
+
+"There were difficulties," he replied; "in fact, a certified lunatic is
+not in great demand as a parish priest. They seem to prefer them
+uncertified."
+
+"But didn't you try?"
+
+"Hard, but it was no use. The bishop was out of town, and I had to wait
+till his return; besides, my position was somewhat insecure. I have had at
+least two remarkable escapes since I saw you last."
+
+"Are you safe here?" she asked, hurriedly.
+
+"With your consent, yes."
+
+She looked a little troubled. "I don't know that I am doing right, Mr
+Bev--Bunker, but----"
+
+"Thank you, my friend," he interrupted, tenderly.
+
+"Don't," she began, hastily. "You mustn't talk like----"
+
+"Francis Beveridge?" he interrupted. "The trouble is, this rascal Bunker
+bears an unconscionably awkward resemblance to our old friend."
+
+"You must see that it is quite--ridiculous."
+
+"Absurd," he agreed,--"perfectly preposterous. I laugh whenever I think of
+it!"
+
+Poor Lady Alicia felt like a man at a telephone who has been connected
+with the wrong person. Again she made a desperate shift to fall back on a
+becoming pride.
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded.
+
+"If I mean anything at all, which is always rather doubtful," he replied,
+candidly, "I mean that Beveridge and his humbug were creatures of an
+occasion, just as Bunker and his are of another. The one occasion is
+passed, and with it the first entertaining gentleman has vanished into
+space. The second gentleman will doubtless follow when his time is up. In
+fact, I may be said to be a series of dissolving views."
+
+"Then isn't what you said true?"
+
+"I'm afraid you must be more specific; you see I've talked so much."
+
+"What you said about yourself--and your work."
+
+He shook his head humorously. "I have no means of checking my statements."
+
+She looked at him in a troubled way, and then her eyes fell.
+
+"At least," she said, "you won't--you mustn't treat me as--as you did."
+
+"As Beveridge did? Certainly not; Bunker is the soul of circumspection.
+Besides, he doesn't require to get out of an asylum."
+
+"Then it was only to get away?" she cried, turning scarlet.
+
+"Let us call it so," he replied, looking pensively out to sea.
+
+It seemed wiser to Lady Alicia to change the subject.
+
+"Who is the friend you are staying with?" she asked, suddenly.
+
+"My old friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, and your own most recent
+admirer," he replied. "I am at present living with, in fact I may say
+upon, him."
+
+"Does he know?"
+
+"If you meet him, you had perhaps better not inquire into my past
+history."
+
+"I meant, does he know about--about your knowing me?"
+
+"Bless them!" thought Mr Bunker; "one forgets they're not _always_
+thinking about us!"
+
+"My noble friend has no idea that I have been so fortunate," he replied.
+
+Lady Alicia looked relieved. "Who is he?" she asked.
+
+"A German nobleman of great wealth, long descent, and the most
+accommodating disposition. He is at present exploring England under my
+guidance, and I flatter myself that he has already seen and done a number
+of things that are not on most programmes."
+
+Lady Alicia was silent for a minute. Then she said with a little
+hesitation, "Didn't you get a letter from me?"
+
+"A letter? No," he replied, in some surprise.
+
+"I wrote twice--because you asked me to, and I thought--I wondered if you
+were safe."
+
+"To what address did you write?"
+
+"The address you gave me."
+
+"And what was that?" he asked, still evidently puzzled.
+
+"You said care of the Archbishop of York would find you."
+
+Mr Bunker abruptly looked the other way.
+
+"By Jove!" he said, as if lost in speculation, "I must find out what the
+matter was. I can't imagine why they haven't been forwarded."
+
+Lady Alicia appeared a little dissatisfied.
+
+"Was that a _real_ address?" she asked, suddenly.
+
+"Perfectly," he replied; "as real as Pentonville Jail or the House of
+Commons." ("And as likely to find me," he added to himself.)
+
+Lady Alicia seemed to hesitate whether to pursue the subject further, but
+in the middle of her debate Mr Bunker asked, "By the way, has Lady
+Grillyer any recollection of having seen me before?"
+
+"No, she doesn't remember you at all."
+
+"Then we shall meet as strangers?"
+
+"Yes, I think it would be better; don't you?"
+
+"It will save our imaginations certainly."
+
+Lady Alicia looked at him as though she expected something more; but as
+nothing came, she said, "I think it's time I went back."
+
+"For the present then _au revoir_, my dear Alicia. I beg your pardon, Lady
+Alicia; it was that rascal Beveridge who made the slip. It now remains to
+make your formal acquaintance."
+
+"You--you mustn't try!"
+
+"The deuce is in these people beginning with B!" he laughed. "They seem to
+do things without trying."
+
+He pressed her hand, raised his hat, and started back to the town. She, on
+her part, lingered to let him get a clear start of her, and her blue eyes
+looked as though a breeze had blown across and ruffled them.
+
+Mr Bunker had reached the esplanade, and was sauntering easily back
+towards the hotel, looking at the people and smiling now and then to
+himself, when he observed with considerable astonishment two familiar
+figures strolling towards him. They were none other than the Baron and the
+Countess, engaged in animated conversation, and apparently on the very
+best terms with each other. At the sight of him the Baron beamed joyfully.
+
+"Aha, Bonker, so you haf returned!" he cried. "In ze meanvile I haf had
+vun great good fortune. Let me present my friend Mr Bonker, ze Lady
+Grillyer."
+
+The Countess bowed most graciously, and raising a pair of
+tortoise-shell-rimmed eye-glasses mounted on a stem of the same material,
+looked at Mr Bunker through these with a by no means disapproving glance.
+
+At first sight it was evident that Lady Alicia must "take after" her noble
+father. The Countess was aquiline of nose, large of person, and emphatic
+in her voice and manner.
+
+"You are the 'showman,' Mr Bunker, are you not?" she said, with a smile
+for which many of her acquaintances would have given a tolerable
+percentage of their incomes.
+
+"It seems," replied Mr Bunker, smiling back agreeably, "that the Baron is
+now the showman, and I must congratulate him on his first venture."
+
+For an instant the Countess seemed a trifle taken aback. It was a
+considerable number of years since she had been addressed in precisely
+this strain, and in fact at no time had her admirers ventured quite so
+dashingly to the attack. But there was something entirely irresistible in
+Mr Bunker's manner, partly perhaps because he never made the mistake of
+heeding a first rebuff. The Countess coughed, then smiled a little again,
+and said to the Baron, "You didn't tell me that your showman supplied the
+little speeches as well."
+
+"I could not know it; zere has not before been ze reason for a pretty
+speech," responded the Baron, gallantly.
+
+If Lady Grillyer had been anybody else, one would have said that she
+actually giggled. Certainly a little wave of scandalised satisfaction
+rippled all over her.
+
+"Oh, really!" she cried, "I don't know which of you is the worst
+offender."
+
+All this time, as may be imagined, Mr Bunker had been in a state of high
+mystification at his friend's unusual adroitness.
+
+"How the deuce did he get hold of her?" he said to himself.
+
+In the next pause the Baron solved the riddle.
+
+"You vil vunder, Bonker," he said, "how I did gom to know ze Lady
+Grillyer."
+
+"I envied, certainly," replied his friend, with a side glance at the now
+purring Countess.
+
+"She vas of my introdogtions, bot till after you vent out zis morning I
+did not lairn her name. Zen I said to myself, 'Ze sun shines, Himmel is
+kind! Here now is ze fair Lady Grillyer--my introdogtion!' and zo zat is
+how, you see."
+
+"To think of the Baron being here and our only finding each other out by
+chance!" said the Countess.
+
+"By a fortunate providence for me!" exclaimed the Baron, fervently.
+
+"Baron," said the Countess, trying hard to look severe, "you must really
+keep some of these nice speeches for my daughter. Which reminds me, I
+wonder where she can be?"
+
+"Ach, here she goms!" cried the Baron.
+
+"Why, how did you know her?" asked the Countess.
+
+"I--I did see her last night at dinnair," explained the Baron, turning red.
+
+"Ah, of course, I remember," replied the Countess, in a matter-of-fact
+tone; but her motherly eye was sharp, and already it began to look on the
+highly eligible Rudolph with more approval than ever.
+
+"My daughter Alicia, the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, Mr Bunker," she
+said the next moment.
+
+The Baron went nearly double as he bowed, and the flourish of his hat
+stirred the dust on the esplanade. Mr Bunker's salutation was less
+profound, but his face expressed an almost equal degree of interested
+respect. Her mother thought that when one of the gentlemen was a nobleman
+with an indefinite number of thousands a-year and the other a person of so
+much discrimination, Lady Alicia's own bow might have been a trifle less
+reserved. But then even the most astute mother cannot know the reasons for
+everything.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"Alicia," said the Countess, "it was really a most fortunate coincidence
+our meeting the Baron at St Egbert's."
+
+She paused for a reply and looked expectantly at her daughter. It was not
+the first time in the course of the morning that Lady Alicia had listened
+to similar observations, and perhaps that was why she answered somewhat
+listlessly, "Yes, wasn't it?"
+
+The Countess frowned, and continued with emphasis, "I consider him one of
+the most agreeable and best informed young men I have ever met."
+
+"Is he?" said Lady Alicia, absently.
+
+"I wonder, Alicia, you hadn't noticed it," her mother observed, severely;
+"you talked with him most of the afternoon. I should have thought that no
+observant, well-bred girl would have failed to have been struck with his
+air and conversation."
+
+"I--I thought him very pleasant, mamma."
+
+"I am glad you had so much sense. He is _extremely_ pleasant."
+
+As Lady Alicia made no reply, the Countess felt obliged to continue his
+list of virtues herself.
+
+"He is of most excellent family, Alicia, one of the oldest in Bavaria. I
+don't remember what I heard his income was in pfennigs, or whatever they
+measure money by in Germany, but I know that it is more than £20,000
+a-year in English money. A very large sum nowadays," she added, as if
+£20,000 had grown since she was a girl.
+
+"Yes, mamma."
+
+"He is considered, besides, an unusually promising and intelligent young
+nobleman, and in Germany, where noblemen are still constantly used, that
+says a great deal for him."
+
+"Does it, mamma?"
+
+"Certainly it does. Education there is so severe that young Englishmen are
+beginning to know less than they ever did, and in most cases that isn't
+saying much. Compare the Baron with the young men you meet here!"
+
+She looked at her daughter triumphantly, and Alicia could only reply,
+"Yes, mamma?"
+
+"Compare them and see the difference. Look at the Baron's friend, Mr
+Bunker, who is a very agreeable and amusing man, I admit, but look at the
+difference!"
+
+"What is it?" Alicia could not help asking.
+
+"_What_ is it, Alicia! It is--ah--it's--er--it is, in short, the effect of a
+carefully cultivated mind and good blood."
+
+"But don't you think Mr Bunker cultivated, mamma--and--and--well-bred?"
+
+"He has an amusing way of saying things,--but then you must remember that
+the Baron is doubtless equally entertaining in his native language,--and
+possibly a superficial knowledge of a few of the leading questions of the
+day; but the Baron talked to me for half an hour on the relations of
+something or other in Germany to--er--something else--a very important point,
+I assure you."
+
+"I always thought him very clever," said Lady Alicia with a touch of
+warmth, and then instantly changed colour at the horrible slip.
+
+"You always," said the Countess in alarmed astonishment; "you hardly spoke
+to him yesterday, and--had you met him before?"
+
+"I--I meant the Baron, mamma."
+
+"But I have just been saying that he was _unusually_ clever."
+
+"But I thought, I mean it seemed as though you considered him only well
+informed."
+
+Lady Alicia's blushes and confusion deepened. Her mother looked at her
+with a softening eye. Suddenly she rose, kissed her affectionately, and
+said with the tenderness of triumph, "My _dear_ girl! Of course he is;
+clever, well informed, and a most _desirable_ young man. My Alicia could
+not do----"
+
+She stopped, as if she thought this was perhaps a little premature (though
+the Countess's methods inclined to the summary and decisive), and again
+kissing her daughter affectionately, remarked gaily, "Let me see, why,
+it's almost time we went for our little walk! We mustn't really disappoint
+those young men. I am in the middle of such an amusing discussion with Mr
+Bunker, who is really a very sensible man and quite worthy of the Baron's
+judgment."
+
+Poor Lady Alicia hardly knew whether to feel more relieved at her escape
+or dismayed at the construction put upon her explanation. She went out to
+meet the Baron, determined to give no further colour to her mother's
+unlucky misconception. The Countess was far too experienced and determined
+a general to leave it at all doubtful who should walk by whose side, and
+who should have the opportunity of appreciating whose merits, but Lady
+Alicia was quite resolved that the Baron's blandishments should fall on
+stony ground.
+
+But a soft heart and an undecided mouth are treacherous companions. The
+Baron was so amiable and so gallant, that at the end of half an hour she
+was obliged to abate the strictness of her resolution. She should treat
+him with the friendliness of a brother. She learned that he had no
+sisters: her decision was confirmed.
+
+The enamoured and delighted Baron was in the seventh heaven of happy
+loquacity. He poured out particulars of his travels, his more recordable
+adventures, his opinions on various social and political matters, and at
+last even of the family ghost, the hereditary carpet-beatership, and the
+glories of Bavaria. And Lady Alicia listened with what he could not doubt
+was an interest touched with tenderness.
+
+"I wonder," she said, artlessly, "that you find anything to admire in
+England--compared with Bavaria, I mean."
+
+"Two zings I haf not zere," replied the Baron, waving his hand round
+towards the horizon. "Vun is ze vet sheet of flowing sea--says not your
+poet so? Ze ozzer" (laying his hand on his heart) "is ze Lady Alicia à
+Fyre."
+
+There are some people who catch sentiment whenever it happens to be in the
+air, just as others almost equally unfortunate regularly take hay-fever.
+
+Lady Alicia's reply was much softer than she intended, especially as she
+could have told anybody that the Baron's compliment was the merest figure
+of speech.
+
+"You needn't have included me: I'm sure _I'm_ not a great attraction."
+
+"Ze sea is less, so zat leaves none," the Baron smiled.
+
+"Didn't you see anybody--I mean, anything in London that attracted you--that
+you liked?"
+
+"Zat I liked, yes, zat pairhaps for the moment attracted me; but not zat
+shall still attract me ven I am gone avay."
+
+The Baron sighed this time, and she felt impelled to reply, with the most
+sisterly kindness, "I--we should, of course, like to think that you didn't
+forget us _altogether_."
+
+"You need not fear."
+
+Then Lady Alicia began to realise that this was more like a second cousin
+than a brother, and with sudden sprightliness she cried, "I wonder where
+that steamer's going!"
+
+The Baron turned his eyes towards his first-named attraction, but for a
+professed lover of the ocean his interest appeared slight. He only replied
+absently, "Ach, zo?"
+
+A little way behind them walked Mr Bunker and the Countess. The attention
+of Lady Grillyer was divided between the agreeable conversation of her
+companion and the pleasant spectacle of a fabulous number of pfennigs
+a-year bending its titled head over her daughter. In the middle of one of
+Mr Bunker's most amusing stories she could not forbear interrupting with a
+complacent "they _do_ make a very handsome couple!"
+
+Mr Bunker politely stopped his narrative, and looked critically from his
+friend's gaily checked back to Lady Alicia's trim figure.
+
+"Pray go on with your story, Mr Bunker," said the Countess, hastily,
+realising that she had thought a little too loudly.
+
+"They are like," responded Mr Bunker, replying to her first remark--"they
+are like a pair of gloves."
+
+The Countess raised her brows and looked at him sharply.
+
+"I mean, of course, the best quality."
+
+"I think," said the Countess, suspiciously, "that you spoke a little
+carelessly."
+
+"My simile was a little premature?"
+
+"I think so," said the Countess, decisively.
+
+"Let us call them then an odd pair," smiled Mr Bunker, unruffled; "and
+only hope that they'll turn out to be the same size and different hands."
+
+The Countess actually condescended to smile back.
+
+"She is a _dear_ child," she murmured.
+
+"His income, I think, is sufficient," he answered.
+
+Humour was not conspicuous in the Grillyer family. The Countess replied
+seriously, "I am one of those out-of-date people, Mr Bunker, who consider
+some things come before money, but the Baron's birth and position are
+fortunately unimpeachable."
+
+"While his mental qualities," said Mr Bunker, "are, in my experience,
+almost unique."
+
+The Countess was confirmed in her opinion of Mr Bunker's discrimination.
+
+Late that night, after they had parted with their friends, the Baron
+smoked in the most unwonted silence while Mr Bunker dozed on the sofa.
+Several times Rudolph threw restive glances at his friend, as if he had
+something on his mind that he needed a helping hand to unburden himself
+of. At last the silence grew so intolerable that he screwed up his courage
+and with desperate resolution exclaimed, "Bonker!"
+
+Mr Bunker opened his eyes and sat up.
+
+"Bonker, I am in loff!"
+
+Mr Bunker smiled and stretched himself out again.
+
+"I have also been in love," he replied.
+
+"You are not now?"
+
+"Alas! no."
+
+"Vy alas?"
+
+"Because follies _without_ illusions get so infernally dull, Baron."
+
+The Baron smiled a little foolishly.
+
+"I haf ze illusions, I fear." Then he broke out enthusiastically, "Ach,
+bot is she not lofly, Bonker? If she will bot lof me back I shall be ze
+happiest man out of heaven!"
+
+"You have wasted no time, Baron."
+
+The Baron shook his head in melancholy pleasure.
+
+"You are quite sure it is really love this time?" his friend pursued.
+
+"Qvite!" said the Baron, with the firmness of a martyr.
+
+"There are so many imitations."
+
+"Not so close zat zey can deceive!"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr Bunker. "These first symptoms are common to them
+all, and yet the varieties of the disease are almost beyond counting. I
+myself have suffered from it in eight different forms. There was the
+virulent, spotted-all-over variety, known as calf-love; there was the kind
+that accompanied itself by a course of the Restoration dramatists; another
+form I may call the strayed-Platonic, and that may be subdivided into at
+least two; then there was----"
+
+"Schtop! schtop!" cried the Baron. "Ha, ha, ha! Zat will do! Teufel! I
+most examine my heart strictly. And yet, Bonker, I zink my loff is anozzer
+kind--ze _real!_"
+
+"They are all that, Baron; but have it your own way. Anything I can do to
+make you worse shall be done."
+
+"Zanks, my best of friends," said the Baron, warmly, seizing his hand; "I
+knew you would stand by me!"
+
+Mr Bunker gave a little laugh, and returning the pressure, replied, "My
+dear fellow, I'd do anything to oblige a friend in such an interesting
+condition."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The Baron was a few minutes late in joining the party at lunch, and when
+he appeared he held an open letter in his hand. It was only the middle of
+the next day, and yet he could have sworn that last night he was
+comparatively whole-hearted, he felt so very much more in love already.
+
+"Yet anozzer introdogtion has found me out," he said as he took his seat.
+"I have here a letter of invitation vich I do not zink I shall accept."
+
+He threw an amorous glance at Lady Alicia, which her watchful mother
+rightly interpreted as indicating the cause of his intended refusal.
+
+"Who is it this time?" asked Mr Bunker.
+
+"Sir Richard Brierley of Brierley Park, Dampshire. Is zat how you
+pronounce it?"
+
+"Sir Richard Brierley!" exclaimed the Countess; "why, Alicia and I are
+going to visit some relatives of ours who live only six miles from
+Brierley Park! When has he asked you, Baron?"
+
+"Ze end of next week."
+
+"How odd! We are going down to Dampshire at the end of next week too. You
+must accept, Baron!"
+
+"I shall!" exclaimed the overjoyed Baron. "Shall ve go, Bonker?"
+
+"I'm not asked, I'm afraid."
+
+"Ach, bot zat is nozzing. I shall tell him."
+
+"As you please, Baron," replied Mr Bunker, with a half glance at Lady
+Alicia.
+
+The infatuated Baron had already begun to dread the inevitable hour of
+separation, and this piece of good fortune put him into the highest
+spirits. He felt so amiable towards the whole world that when the four
+went out for a stroll in the afternoon he lingered for a minute by Lady
+Grillyer's side, and in that minute Mr Bunker and Lady Alicia were out of
+hail ahead. The Baron's face fell.
+
+"Shall I come down to this place?" said Mr Bunker.
+
+"Would you like to?"
+
+"I should be sorry," he replied, "to part with--the Baron."
+
+Lady Alicia had expected a slightly different ending to this sentence, and
+so, to tell the truth, Mr Bunker had intended.
+
+"Oh, if you can't stay away from the Baron, you had better go."
+
+"It is certainly very hard to tear myself away from so charming a person
+as the Baron; perhaps you can feel for me?"
+
+"I think he is very--nice."
+
+"He thinks you very nice."
+
+"Does he?" said Lady Alicia, with great indifference, and a moment later
+changed the subject.
+
+Meanwhile the Baron was growing very uneasy. Of course it was quite
+natural that Mr Bunker should find it pleasant to walk for a few minutes
+by the side of the fairest creature on earth, and very possibly he was
+artfully pleading his friend's cause. Yet the Baron felt uneasy. He
+remembered Mr Bunker's invariable success with the gentler sex, his wit,
+his happy smile, and his good looks; and he began to wish most sincerely
+that these fascinations were being exercised on the now somewhat
+breathless Countess, for his efforts to overtake the pair in front had
+both annoyed and exhausted Lady Grillyer.
+
+"Need we walk quite so fast, Baron?" she suggested; and Lady Grillyer's
+suggestions were of the kind that are evidently meant to be acted upon.
+
+"Ach, I did forged," said the Baron, absently, and without further remark
+he slackened his pace for a few yards and then was off again.
+
+"You were telling me," gasped the Countess, "of something you thought
+of--doing when--you went--home."
+
+"Zo? Oh yes, it vas--Teufel! I do not remember."
+
+"Really, Baron," said the Countess, decidedly, "I cannot go any farther at
+this rate. Let us turn. The others will be turning too, in a minute."
+
+In fact the unlucky Baron had clean run Lady Grillyer's maternal instincts
+off their feet, and he suffered for it by seeing nothing of either his
+friend or his charmer for an hour and a half.
+
+That night he accepted Sir Richard's invitation, but said nothing whatever
+about bringing a friend.
+
+For the next week Rudolph was in as many states of mind as there were
+hours in each day. He walked and rode and drove with Lady Alicia through
+the most romantic spots he could find. He purchased a large assortment of
+golf-clubs, and under her tuition essayed to play that most dangerous of
+games for mixed couples. In turn he broke every club in his set; the
+cavities he hewed in the links are still pointed out to the curious; but
+the heart of the Lady Alicia alone he seemed unable to damage. There was
+always a moment at which his courage failed him, and in that fatal pause
+she invariably changed the subject with the most innocent air in the
+world.
+
+Every now and then the greenest spasms of jealousy would seize him. Why
+did she elect to disappear with Mr Bunker on the very morning that he had
+resolved should settle his fate? It is true he had made the same
+resolution every morning, but on this particular one he had no doubt he
+would have put his fate to the touch. And why on a certain moonlight
+evening was he left to the unsentimental company of the Countess?
+
+He made no further reference to the visit to Brierley Park; in fact he
+shunned discussion of any kind with his quondam bosom friend.
+
+The time slipped past, till the visit to St Egbert's was almost at an end.
+On the day after to-morrow all four were going to leave (where Mr Bunker
+was going, his friend never troubled to inquire).
+
+They sat together latish in the evening in the Baron's room. That very
+afternoon Lady Alicia had spent more time in Mr Bunker's society than in
+his, and the Baron felt that the hour had come for an explanation.
+
+"Bonker, I haf a suspection!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "It is not I, bot
+you, who are ze friend to ze beautiful Lady Alicia. You are not doing me
+fair!"
+
+"My dear Baron!"
+
+"It is so: you are not doing me fair," the Baron reiterated.
+
+"My dear fellow," replied Mr Bunker, "it is you are so much in love that
+you have lost your wonted courage. You don't use your chances."
+
+"I do not get zem."
+
+"Nonsense, Baron! I haven't spent one hour in Lady Alicia's company to
+your twenty-four, and yet if I'd been matrimonially inclined I could have
+proposed twice over. You've had the chance of being accepted fifty times."
+
+"I haf not been accepted vunce," said the Baron, moodily.
+
+"Have you put the question?"
+
+"I haf not dared."
+
+"Well, my dear Baron, whose fault is that?"
+
+The Baron was silent.
+
+"Ask her to-morrow."
+
+"No, Bonker," said the Baron, sadly; "she treats me not like a lover. She
+talks of friendship. I do not vish a frient!"
+
+Mr Bunker looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "You don't think you have
+touched her heart?" he asked at length.
+
+"I fear not."
+
+"You must try an infallible recipe for winning a woman's heart. You must
+be in trouble."
+
+"In trouble!"
+
+"I have tried it once myself, with great success."
+
+"Bot how?"
+
+"You must fall ill."
+
+"Bot I cannot; I am too healthful, alas!"
+
+Mr Bunker smiled artfully. "They come to tea in our rooms to-morrow, you
+know. By then, Baron, you must be laid up, ill or not, just as you please.
+A grain of Lady Alicia's sympathy is worth more than a ton of even your
+wit."
+
+The standard chosen for the measurement of his wit escaped the Baron, the
+scheme delighted him.
+
+"Ha, Bonker! schön! I tvig! Goot!" he cried. "How shall ve do?"
+
+"Leave it to me."
+
+The Baron reflected, and his smile died away.
+
+"Sopposing," he said, slowly, "zey find out? Is it vise? Is it straight?"
+
+"They can't find out. They go the next morning, and what's to prevent your
+making a quick recovery and pluckily going down to Brierley Park as the
+interesting convalescent? She will know that you've made a dangerous
+journey on her account."
+
+The Baron's face cleared again.
+
+"Let us try!" he said; "anyzing is better zan my present state. Bot, be
+careful, Bonker!"
+
+"I shall take the most minute precautions," replied Mr Bunker.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The next morning the two conspirators breakfasted early. The Baron seemed
+a little nervous now that it came so near the venture, but his friend was
+as cheerful as a schoolboy, and his confident air soon put fresh courage
+into Rudolph.
+
+Mr Bunker's bedroom opened out of their common sitting-room, and so he
+declared that in the afternoon the Baron must be laid up there.
+
+"Keep your room all morning," he said, "and look as pale as you can. I
+shall make my room ready for you."
+
+When the Baron had retired, he threw himself into a chair and gazed for a
+few minutes round his bedroom. Then he rang his bell, ordered the servant
+to make the bed immediately, and presently went out to do some shopping.
+On the way he sent word to the Countess, telling her only that the Baron
+was indisposed, but that in spite of this misfortune he hoped he should
+have the pleasure of their company at tea. The rest of the morning he
+spent in his bedroom, prudently keeping out of the ladies' way.
+
+When, after a substantial lunch which he insisted upon getting up to eat,
+the Baron was allowed to enter the sick-room, he uttered an exclamation of
+astonishment,--and indeed his surprise was natural. The room was as full of
+flowers as a conservatory; chairs, wardrobe, and fireplace were most
+artistically draped with art hangings; a plate filled with grapes, a large
+bottle labelled "Two table-spoonfuls every half hour," and a
+medicine-glass were placed conspicuously on a small table; and, most
+remarkable feature of all, Mr Bunker's bath filled with water and alive
+with goldfish stood by the side of the bed. A couple of canaries sang in a
+cage by the window, the half-drawn curtains only permitted the most
+delicate light to steal into the room, and in short the whole arrangement
+reflected the utmost credit on his ingenious friend.
+
+The Baron was delighted, but a little puzzled.
+
+"Vat for are zese fishes and ze canaries?" he asked.
+
+"To show your love of nature."
+
+"Vy so?"
+
+"There is nothing that pleases a woman more."
+
+"My friend, you zink of everyzing!" exclaimed the Baron, admiringly.
+
+When four o'clock approached he drew a night-shirt over his other garments
+and got into bed. Mr Bunker at first was in favour of a complete change of
+attire, but on his friend's expostulating against such a thorough
+precaution, he admitted that it would be perhaps rather like the historic
+blacking of Othello.
+
+"Leave it all to me, my dear Baron," he said, reassuringly, as he tucked
+him in; and with that he went into the other room and awaited the arrival
+of their guests.
+
+They came punctually. The Countess was full of concern for the "dear
+Baron," while Lady Alicia, he could not help thinking, appeared unusually
+reserved. In fact, his quick eye soon divined that something was the
+matter.
+
+"She has either been getting a lecture from the dowager or has found
+something out," he said to himself.
+
+However, it seemed that if she had found anything out it could have
+nothing to do with the Baron's indisposition, for she displayed the most
+ingenuous sympathy, and, he thought, she even appeared to aim it pointedly
+at himself.
+
+"So sudden!" exclaimed the Countess.
+
+"It is rather sudden, but we'll hope it may pass as quickly as it came,"
+said Mr Bunker, conveying a skilful impression of deep concern veiled by a
+cheerful manner.
+
+"Tell me honestly, Mr Bunker, is it dangerous?" demanded the countess.
+
+Mr Bunker hesitated, gave a half-hearted laugh, and replied, "Oh, dear,
+no! that is--at present, Lady Grillyer, we have really no reason to be
+alarmed."
+
+"I am _so_ sorry," murmured Lady Alicia.
+
+Her mother looked at her approvingly.
+
+"Poor Baron!" she said, in a tone of the greatest commiseration.
+
+"So far from home!" sighed Mr Bunker. "And yet so cheerful through it
+all," he added.
+
+"What did you say was the matter?" asked the Countess.
+
+Mr Bunker had thought it both wiser and more effective to maintain a
+little mystery round his friend's malady.
+
+"The doctor hasn't yet given a decided opinion," he replied.
+
+"Can't we do anything?" said Lady Alicia, softly.
+
+Mr Bunker thought the guests were nearly worked up to the proper pitch of
+sympathy.
+
+"Poor Rudolph!" he exclaimed. "It would cheer him immensely, I know, and
+ease my own anxiety as well, if you would venture in to see him for a few
+minutes. In such a case there is no sympathy so welcome as a woman's."
+
+The Countess glanced at her daughter, and wavered for an instant between
+those proprieties for which she was a famous stickler and this admirable
+chance of completing the Baron's conquest.
+
+"His relations are far away," said Mr Bunker, looking pensively out of the
+window.
+
+"We might come in for a few minutes, Alicia?" suggested Lady Grillyer.
+
+"Yes, mamma," replied Lady Alicia, with an alacrity that rather surprised
+their host.
+
+With a pleasantly dejected air he ushered the ladies into the darkened
+sick-room. The Baron, striving to conceal his exultation under a rueful
+semblance, greeted them with a languid yet happy smile.
+
+"Ah, Lady Grillyer, zis is kind indeed! And you, Lady Alicia, how can I
+zank you?"
+
+"My daughter and I are much distressed, Baron, to find our host _hors de
+combat_," said the Countess, graciously.
+
+"Just when you wanted to go away too!" added Lady Alicia, sympathetically.
+
+The Baron emitted a happy blend of sigh and groan.
+
+"Alas!" he replied, "it is hard indeed."
+
+"You must hurry up and get better," said the Countess, in her most
+cheering sick-room manner. "It won't do to disappoint the Brierleys, you
+know."
+
+"You must come down for _part_ of the time," smiled her daughter.
+
+These expressions of sympathy so affected the Baron that he placed his
+hand on his brow and turned slightly away to conceal his emotion. At the
+same time Mr Bunker, with well-timed dramatic effect, sank wearily into a
+chair, and, laying his elbow on the back, hid his own face in his hand.
+
+Their guests jumped to the most alarming conclusions, and looked from one
+to the other with great concern.
+
+"Dear me!" said the Countess, "surely it isn't so very serious, Mr Bunker;
+it isn't _infectious_, is it?"
+
+The unlucky Baron here made his first mistake: without waiting for his
+more diplomatic friend to reply, he answered hastily, "Ach, no, it is bot
+a cold."
+
+Lady Grillyer's expression changed.
+
+"A cold!" she said. "Dear me, that can't be so very serious, Baron."
+
+"It is a bad cold," said the Baron.
+
+By this time the ladies' eyes were growing more used to the dim light, and
+Mr Bunker could see that they were taking rapid stock of the garnishings.
+
+"This, I suppose, is your cough-mixture," said the Countess, examining the
+bottle.
+
+The Baron incautiously admitted it was.
+
+"Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!" she exclaimed; "why, I never heard
+of taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn't seem
+so very bad, Baron."
+
+"Ze doctor told me to take it so," replied the Baron.
+
+The Countess turned towards Mr Bunker and said, with a touch of suspicion
+in her voice, "I thought, Mr Bunker, the doctor had given no opinion."
+
+The Baron threw a glance of intense ferocity at his friend.
+
+"In the Baron's desire to spare your feelings," replied Mr Bunker,
+gravely, "he has been a little inaccurate; that is not precisely an
+ordinary cough-mixture."
+
+"Oh," said the Countess.
+
+Lady Alicia's attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, and
+suddenly she exclaimed, "Why, there are goldfish in it!"
+
+The Baron's nerve was fast deserting him.
+
+"Ze doctor ordered zem," he began--"I mean, I am fond of fishes."
+
+The Countess looked hard at the unhappy young man, and then turned
+severely to his friend.
+
+"_What_ is the matter with the Baron?" she demanded.
+
+Mr Bunker saw there was nothing for it but heroic measures.
+
+"The dog was destroyed at once," he replied, with intense gravity. "It is
+therefore impossible to say exactly what is the matter."
+
+"_The dog!_" cried the two ladies together.
+
+"By this evening," he continued, "we shall know the worst--or the best."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed the Countess, withdrawing a step from the
+bed.
+
+"I mean," replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration, "that this bath is
+a delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear to
+look----"
+
+But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking the
+Baron's face had passed through a series of the most extraordinary
+expressions, which she not unnaturally put down to premonitory symptoms.
+
+"It's beginning already!" she shrieked. "Alicia, my love, come quickly.
+How dare you expose us, sir?"
+
+"Calm yourselves. I assure you----" pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily after
+them, but they were at the door before him.
+
+The hapless Baron could stand it no longer. Crying, "No, no, it is false!"
+he sprang out of bed, arrayed in a tweed suit only half concealed by his
+night-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a great
+splash among the startled goldfish.
+
+The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horror
+that rapidly passed into intense indignation.
+
+"I am not ill!" he cried. "It vos zat rascal Bonker's plot. He made me! I
+haf not hydrophobia!"
+
+Most unkindest cut of all, Lady Alicia went off into hysterical giggles.
+For a moment her mother glared at the two young men in silence, and then
+only remarking, "I have never been so insulted before," she went out, and
+her daughter followed her.
+
+As the door closed Mr Bunker went off into roar after roar of laughter,
+but the humorous side of the situation seemed to appeal very slightly to
+his injured friend.
+
+"You rascal! you villain!" he shouted, "zis is ze end of our friendship,
+Bonker! Do you use ze pistols? Tell me, sare!"
+
+"My dear Baron," gasped Mr Bunker, "I could not put such an inartistic end
+to so fine a joke for the world."
+
+"You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name bad
+enoff for you!"
+
+With difficulty Mr Bunker composed himself and replied, still smiling:
+"After all, Baron, what harm has been done? I get all the blame, and the
+sympathy you wanted is sure to turn to you."
+
+"False friend!" thundered the Baron.
+
+"My dear Baron!" said Mr Bunker, mildly, "whose fault was it that the plot
+miscarried? If you'd only left it all to me----"
+
+"Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to
+vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!" And with that the
+infuriated nobleman rushed off to his own room.
+
+As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker,
+still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air;
+but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia
+lingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.
+
+She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of
+anger running beneath it.
+
+"I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day through the
+dead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave."
+
+"I am not surprised," he replied.
+
+"Then it was false?"
+
+"As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn't happen to be
+mine."
+
+"Were you _ever_ in the Church?"
+
+"Not to my personal knowledge."
+
+"Yet you said you were?"
+
+"I was in an asylum."
+
+She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her with
+great amusement.
+
+"You have deceived _me_," she said, "and you have treated your other
+friend--who is far too good for you--disgracefully. Have you anything to say
+for yourself?"
+
+"Not a word," he replied, cheerfully.
+
+"You must _never_ treat me again as--as I let you."
+
+As a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly, "I
+don't _suppose_ I shall ever see you again. In future we are not _likely_
+to meet."
+
+"The lady and the lunatic?" said he. "Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, and
+better luck."
+
+"Good-bye," she answered coldly, and added as they parted, "my mother, of
+course, is extremely angry with you."
+
+"There," he said with a smile, "you see I still come in useful."
+
+She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of the
+hotel.
+
+"It seems to me," he reflected, "that I shall have to set out on my
+adventures again alone."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The Baron's natural good temper might have forgiven his friend, but all
+night he was a prey to something against which no temper is proof. The
+Baron was bitterly jealous. All through breakfast he never spoke a word,
+and when Mr Bunker asked him what train he intended to take, he replied
+curtly, as he went to the door, "Ze 5.30."
+
+"And where do you go now?"
+
+"Vat is zat to you? I go for a valk. I vould be alone."
+
+"Good-bye, then, Baron," said Mr Bunker. "I think I shall go up to town."
+
+"Go, zen," replied the Baron, opening the door; "I haf no furzer vish to
+see a treacherous _sponge_ zat vill neizer be true nor fight, bot jost
+takes money."
+
+He slammed the door and went out. If he had waited for a moment, he would
+have seen a look in Mr Bunker's face that he had never seen before. He
+half started from his chair to follow, and then sat down again and thought
+with his lips very tight set.
+
+All at once they broke into a smile that was grimmer than anything the
+Baron had known.
+
+"I accept your challenge, Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg," he said to
+himself; "but the weapons I shall choose myself."
+
+He took a telegraph form, wrote and despatched a wire, and then with
+considerable haste proceeded to pack. Within an hour he had left the
+hotel.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+When a servant, later in the day, was performing, under the Baron's
+directions, the same office for him, a series of discoveries that still
+further disturbed his peace of mind were jointly made. Not only the more
+sporting portions of his wardrobe but his gun and cartridges as well, had
+vanished, and, search and storm as he liked, there was not a trace of them
+to be found.
+
+"Ze rascal!" he muttered; "I did not zink he was zief as well."
+
+It is hardly wonderful that he arrived at Brierley station in anything but
+an amiable frame of mind. There, to his great annoyance and surprise, he
+found no signs of Sir Richard's carriage; there were no stables near, and,
+after fuming for some time on the platform, he was forced to leave his
+luggage with the station-master and proceed on foot to Brierley Park.
+
+He arrived shortly before seven o'clock, after a dark and muddy tramp,
+and, still swearing under his breath, pulled the bell with indignant
+energy.
+
+"I am ze Baron von Blitzenberg, bot zere vas no carriage at ze station,"
+he informed the butler in his haughtiest tones.
+
+The man looked at him suspiciously.
+
+"The Baron arrived this morning," he said.
+
+"Ze Baron? Vat Baron? I am ze Baron!"
+
+"I shall fetch Sir Richard," said the butler, turning away.
+
+Presently a stout florid gentleman, accompanied by three friends, all
+evidently very curious and amused about something, came to the door, and,
+to the poor Baron's amazement and horror, he recognised in one of these
+none other than Mr Bunker, arrayed with much splendour in his own ornate
+shooting suit.
+
+"What do you want?" asked the florid gentleman, sternly.
+
+"Have I ze pleasure of addressing Sir Richard Brierley?" inquired the
+Baron, raising his hat and bowing profoundly.
+
+"You have."
+
+"Zen I must tell you zat I am ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg."
+
+"Gom, gom, my man!" interposed Mr Bunker. "I know you. Zis man, Sir
+Richard, has before annoyed me. He is vat you call impostor, cracked; he
+has vollowed me from Germany. Go avay, man!"
+
+"You are impostor! You scoundrel, Bonker!" shouted the wrathful Baron. "He
+is no Baron, Sir Richard! Ha! Vould you again deceive me, Bonker?"
+
+"You must lock him up, I fear," said Mr Bunker. "To-morrow, my man, you
+vill see ze police."
+
+So completely did the Baron lose his head that he became almost
+inarticulate with rage: his protestations, however, were not of the
+slightest avail. That morning Sir Richard had received a wire informing
+him that the Baron was coming by an earlier train than he had originally
+intended, and, since his arrival, the spurious nobleman had so ingratiated
+himself with his host that Sir Richard was filled with nothing but
+sympathy for him in his persecution. After a desperate struggle the
+unfortunate Rudolph was overpowered and conveyed in the undignified
+fashion known as the frog's march to a room in a remote wing, there to
+pass the night under lock and key.
+
+"The scoundrelly German impostor!" exclaimed a young man, a fellow visitor
+of the Baron Bunker's, to a tall, military-looking gentleman.
+
+Colonel Savage seemed lost in thought.
+
+"It is a curious thing, Trelawney," he replied, at length, "that the
+footman who attends the Baron should have told my man--who, of course, told
+me--that a number of his things are marked 'Francis Beveridge.' It is also
+rather strange that this impostor should have known so little of the
+Baron's movements as to arrive several hours after him, assuming he had
+hatched a plot to impersonate him."
+
+"But the man's obviously mad."
+
+"Must be," said the colonel.
+
+The house party were assembled in the drawing-room waiting for dinner to
+be announced. The bogus Baron was engaged in an animated discussion with
+Colonel Savage on the subject of Bavarian shootings, and the colonel
+having omitted to inform him that he had some personal experience of
+these, Mr Bunker was serving up such of his friend's anecdotes as he could
+remember with sauce more peculiarly his own.
+
+"Five hondred vild boars," he was saying, "eight hondred brace of
+partridges, many bears, and rabbits so moch zat it took five veeks to bury
+zem. All zese ve did shoot before breakfast, colonel. Aftair breakfast
+again ve did go out----"
+
+But at that moment his attention was sharply arrested by a question of
+Lady Brierley's.
+
+"Has Dr Escott arrived?" she asked.
+
+The Baron Bunker paused, and in spite of his habitual coolness, the
+observant colonel noticed that he started ever so slightly.
+
+"He came half an hour ago," replied Sir Richard. "Ah, here he is."
+
+As he spoke, a well-remembered figure came into the room, and after a
+welcome from his hostess, the dinner procession started.
+
+"Whoever is that tall fair man in front?" Dr Escott asked his partner as
+they crossed the hall.
+
+"Oh, that's the Baron von Blitzenberg: such an amusing man! We are all in
+love with him already."
+
+All through dinner the spurious Baron saw that Dr Escott's eyes turned
+continually and curiously on him; yet never for an instant did his spirits
+droop or his conversation flag. Witty and charming as ever, he discoursed
+in his comical foreign accent to the amusement of all within hearing, and
+by the time the gentlemen adjourned to the billiard-room, he had
+established the reputation of being the most delightful German ever seen.
+Yet Dr Escott grew more suspicious and bewildered, and Mr Bunker felt that
+he was being narrowly watched. The skill at billiards of a certain Francis
+Beveridge used to be the object of the doctor's unbounded admiration, and
+it was with the liveliest interest that he watched a game between Colonel
+Savage and the Baron.
+
+That nobleman knew well the danger of displaying his old dexterity, and to
+the onlookers it soon became apparent that this branch of his education
+had been neglected. He not only missed the simplest shots, but seemed very
+ignorant of the rules of the English game, and in consequence he came in
+for a little good-natured chaff from Sir Richard and Trelawney. When the
+colonel's score stood at 90 and the Baron had scarcely reached 25
+Trelawney cried, "I'll bet you ten to one you don't win, Baron!"
+
+"What in?" asked the Baron, and the colonel noticed that for the first
+time be pronounced a _w_ correctly.
+
+"Sovereigns," said Trelawney, gaily.
+
+The temptation was irresistible.
+
+"Done!" said the Baron. With a professional disregard for conventions he
+bolted the white into the middle pocket, leaving his own ball nicely
+beside the red. Down in its turn went the red, and Mr Bunker was on the
+spot. Three followed three in monotonous succession, Trelawney's face
+growing longer and Dr Escott getting more and more excited, till with a
+smile Mr Bunker laid down his cue, a sensational winner.
+
+His victory was received in silence: Trelawney handed over two five-pound
+notes without a word, and the colonel returned to his whisky-and-soda. Dr
+Escott could contain himself no longer, and whispering something to Sir
+Richard, the two left the room.
+
+Imperturbable as ever, Mr Bunker talked gaily for a few minutes to an
+unresponsive audience, and then, remarking that he would join the ladies,
+left the room.
+
+A minute or two later Sir Richard, with an anxious face, returned with Dr
+Escott.
+
+"Where is the Baron?" he asked.
+
+"Gone to join the ladies," replied Trelawney, adding under his breath,
+"d---- n him!"
+
+But the Baron was not with the ladies, nor, search the house as they
+might, was there a trace to be seen of that accomplished nobleman.
+
+"He has gone!" said Sir Richard.
+
+"What the deuce is the meaning of it?" exclaimed Trelawney.
+
+Colonel Savage smiled grimly and suggested, "Perhaps he wants to give the
+impostor an innings."
+
+"Dr Escott, I think, can tell you," replied the baronet.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the doctor, "the man whom you have met as the Baron von
+Blitzenberg is none other than a most cunning and determined lunatic. He
+escaped from the asylum where I am at present assistant doctor, after all
+but murdering me; he has been seen in London since, but how he came to
+impersonate the unfortunate gentleman whom you locked up this afternoon I
+cannot say."
+
+Before they broke up for the night the genuine Baron, released from
+confinement and soothed by the humblest apologies and a heavy supper,
+recounted the main events in Mr Beveridge _alias_ Bunker's brief career in
+town. On his exploits in St Egbert's he felt some delicacy in touching,
+but at the end of what was after all only a fragmentary and one-sided
+narrative, even the defrauded Trelawney could not but admit that, whatever
+the departed gentleman's failings, his talents at least were worthy of a
+better cause.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The party at Brierley Park had gone at last to bed. The Baron was
+installed in his late usurper's room, and from the clock-tower the hour of
+three had just been tolled. Sympathy and Sir Richard's cellar had greatly
+mollified the Baron's wrath; he had almost begun to see the humorous side
+of his late experience; as a rival Mr Bunker was extinct, and with an easy
+mind and a placid smile he had fallen asleep some two hours past.
+
+The fire burned low, and for long nothing but the occasional sigh of the
+wind in the trees disturbed the silence. At length, had the Baron been
+awake, he might have heard the stealthiest of footsteps in the corridor
+outside. Then they stopped; his door was gently opened, and first a head
+and then a whole man slipped in.
+
+Still the Baron slept, dreaming peacefully of his late companion. They
+were driving somewhere in a hansom, Mr Bunker was telling one of his most
+amusing stories, when there came a shock, the hansom seemed to turn a
+somersault, and the Baron awoke. At first he thought he must be dreaming
+still; the electric light had been turned on and the room was bright as
+day, but, more bewildering yet, Mr Bunker was seated on his bed, gazing at
+him with an expression of thoughtful amusement.
+
+"Well, Baron," he said, "I trust you are comfortable in these excellent
+quarters."
+
+The Baron, half awake and wholly astonished, was unable to collect his
+ideas in time to make any reply.
+
+"But remember," continued Mr Bunker, "you have a reputation to live up to.
+I have set the standard high for Bavarian barons."
+
+The indignant Baron at last recovered his wits.
+
+"If you do not go away _at vonce_," he said, raising himself on his
+elbows, "I shall raise ze house upon you!"
+
+"Have you forgotten that you are talking to a dangerous lunatic, who
+probably never stirs without his razor?"
+
+The Baron looked at him and turned a little pale. He made no further
+movement, but answered stoutly enough, "Vat do you vant?"
+
+"In the first place, I want my brush and comb, a few clothes, and my
+hand-bag. Events happened rather more quickly this evening than I had
+anticipated."
+
+"Take zem."
+
+"I should also like," continued Mr Bunker, unmoved, "to have a little talk
+with you. I think I owe you some explanation--perhaps an apology or two--and
+I'm afraid it's my last chance."
+
+"Zay it zen."
+
+"Of course I understand that you make no hostile demonstration till I am
+finished? A hunted man must take precautions, you know."
+
+"I vill let you go."
+
+"Thanks, Baron."
+
+Mr Bunker folded his arms, leaned his back against the foot of the bed,
+and began in his half-bantering way, "I have amused you, Baron, now and
+then, you must admit?"
+
+The Baron made no reply.
+
+"That I place to my credit, and I think few debts are better worth
+repaying. On the other hand, I confess I have subsisted for some time
+entirely on your kindness. I'm afraid that alone counterbalances the debt,
+and when it comes to my being the means of your taking a bath in mixed
+company and spending an evening in a locked room, there's no doubt the
+balance is greatly on your side."
+
+"I zink so," observed the Baron.
+
+"So I'll tell you a true story, a favour with which I haven't indulged any
+one for some considerable time."
+
+The Baron coughed, but said nothing.
+
+"My biography for all practical purposes," Mr Bunker continued, "begins in
+that sequestered retreat, Clankwood Asylum. How and with whom I came there
+I haven't the very faintest recollection. I simply woke up from an
+extraordinary drowsiness to find myself recovering from a sharp attack of
+what I may most euphoniously call mental excitement. The original cause of
+it is very dim in my mind, and has, so far as I remember, nothing to do
+with the rest of the story. The attack was very short, I believe. I soon
+came to something more or less like myself; only, Baron, the singular
+thing is, that it was to all intents and purposes a new self--whether
+better or worse, my faulty memory does not permit me to say. I'd clean
+forgotten who I was and all about me. I found myself called Francis
+Beveridge, but that wasn't my old name, I know."
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed the Baron, growing interested despite himself.
+
+"And the most remarkable thing of all is that up till this day I haven't
+the very vaguest notion what my real name is."
+
+"Zo?" said the Baron. "Bot vy should they change it?"
+
+"There you've laid your finger on the mystery, Baron. Why? Heaven knows: I
+wish I did!"
+
+The Baron looked at him with undisguised interest.
+
+"Strange!" he said, thoughtfully.
+
+"Damnably strange. I found myself compelled to live in an asylum and
+answer to a new name, and really, don't you know, under the circumstances
+I could give no very valid reason for getting out. I seemed to have
+blossomed there like one of the asylum plants. I couldn't possibly have
+been more identified with the place. Besides, I'm free to confess that for
+some time my reason, taking it all in all, wasn't particularly valid on
+any point. By George, I had a funny time! Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+His mirth was so infectious that the Baron raised his voice in a hearty
+"Ha, ha!" and then stopped abruptly, and said cautiously, "Haf a care,
+Bonker, zey may hear!"
+
+"However, Baron," Mr Bunker continued, "out I was determined to get, and
+out I came in the manner of which perhaps my friend Escott has already
+informed you."
+
+The Baron grinned and nodded.
+
+"I came up to town, and on my very first evening I had the good fortune to
+meet the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg--as perhaps you may remember. In my
+own defence, Baron, I may fairly plead that since I could remember nothing
+about my past career, I was entitled to supply the details from my
+imagination. After all, I have no proof that some of my stories may not
+have been correct. I used this privilege freely in Clankwood, and, in a
+word, since I couldn't tell the truth if I wanted to, I quenched the
+desire."
+
+"You hombog!" said the Baron, not without a note of admiration.
+
+"I was, and I gloried in it. Baron, if you ever want to know how ample a
+thing life can be, become a certified lunatic! You are quite irresponsible
+for your debts, your crimes, and, not least, your words. It certainly
+enlarges one's horizon. All this time, I may say, I was racking my
+brains--which, by the way, have been steadily growing saner in other
+matters--for some recollections of my previous whereabouts, my career, if I
+had any, and, above all, of my name."
+
+"Can you remember nozing?"
+
+"I can remember a large country house which I think belonged to me, but in
+what part of the country it stands I haven't the slightest recollection. I
+can't remember any family, and as no one has inquired for me, I don't
+suppose I had any. Many incidents--sporting, festive, amusing, and
+discreditable--I remember distinctly, and many faces, but there's nothing
+to piece them together with. Can you recall one or two incidents in town,
+when people spoke to me or bowed to me?"
+
+"Yes, vell; I vondered zen."
+
+"I suppose they knew me. In a general sort of way I knew them. But when a
+man doesn't know his own name, and will probably be replaced in an asylum
+if he's identified, there isn't much encouragement for greeting old
+friends. And do you remember my search for a name in the hotel at St
+Egbert's?"
+
+"Yah--zat is, yes."
+
+"It was for my own I was looking."
+
+"You found it not?"
+
+"No. The worst of it is, I can't even remember what letter it began with.
+Sometimes I think it was M, or perhaps N, and sometimes I'm almost sure it
+was E. It will come to me some day, no doubt, Baron, but till it does I
+shall have to wander about a nameless man, looking for it. And after all,
+I am not without the consolations of a certain useful, workaday kind of
+philosophy."
+
+He rose from the bed and smiled humorously at his friend.
+
+"And now, Baron," he said, "it only remains to offer you such thanks and
+apologies as a lunatic may, and then clear out before the cock crows.
+These are my brushes, I think."
+
+There was still something on the Baron's mind: he lay for a moment
+watching Mr Bunker collect a few odds and ends and put them rapidly into a
+small bag, and then blurted out suddenly, "Ze Lady Alicia--do you loff
+her?"
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr Bunker, "I'd forgotten all about her. I ought to
+have told you that I once met her before, when she showed
+sympathy--practical sympathy, I may add--for an unfortunate gentleman in
+Clankwood. That's all."
+
+"You do not loff her?" persisted the Baron.
+
+"I, my dear chap? No. You are most welcome to her--_and_ the countess."
+
+"Does she not loff you?"
+
+"On my honour, no. I told her a few early reminiscences; she happened to
+discover they were not what is generally known as true, and took so absurd
+a view of the case that I doubt whether she would speak to me again if she
+met me. In fact, Baron, if I read the omens aright--and I've had some
+experience--you only need courage and a voice."
+
+The bed creaked, there was a volcanic upheaval of the clothes as the Baron
+sprang out on to the floor, and the next instant Mr Bunker was clasped in
+his embrace.
+
+"Ach, my own Bonker, forgif me! I haf suspected, I haf not been ze true
+friend; you have sairved me right to gom here as ze Baron. I vas too bad a
+Baron to gom! You have amused me, you have instrogted, you have varmed my
+heart. My dear frient!"
+
+To tell the truth, Mr Bunker looked, for the first time in their
+acquaintance, a little ill at ease. He laughed, but it sounded affected.
+
+"My dear fellow--hang it! You'd make me out a martyr. As a matter of fact,
+I've been such a thorn as very few people would stand in their flesh.
+There's nothing to forgive, my dear Baron, and a lot to thank you for."
+
+"I haf been rude, Bonker; I haf insulted you! You forgif me?"
+
+"With all my heart, if you think it's needed, but----"
+
+"And you vill not go now? You vill stay here?"
+
+"What, two Barons at once? My dear chap, we'd merely confuse the butler."
+
+"Ach, you vill joke, you hombog! But you most stay!"
+
+"And what about my friend, Dr Escott? No, Baron, it would only mean
+breakfast and the next train to Clankwood."
+
+"Zey vill not take you ven you tell zem! I shall insist viz Sir Richard!"
+
+"The law is the law, Baron, and I'm a certified lunatic. Here we must part
+till the weather clears; and mind, you mustn't say a word about my coming
+to see you."
+
+The Baron looked at him disconsolately.
+
+"You most really go, Bonker?"
+
+"Really, Baron."
+
+"And vere to?"
+
+"To London town again by the milk train."
+
+"And vat vill you do zere?"
+
+"Look for my name."
+
+"Bot how?"
+
+Mr Bunker hesitated.
+
+"I have a little clue," he said at last, "only a thread, but I'll try it
+for what it's worth."
+
+"Haf you money enoff?"
+
+"Thanks to your generosity and my skill at billiards, yes, which reminds
+me that I must return poor Trelawney's ten pounds some day. At present, I
+can't afford to be scrupulous. So, you see, I'm provided for."
+
+"Cigars at least, Bonker! You most smoke, my frient vizout a name!"
+
+The Baron, night-shirted and barefooted as he was, dived into his
+portmanteau and produced a large box of cigars.
+
+"You like zese, Bonker. Zey are your own choice. Smoke zem and zink of
+me!"
+
+"A few, Baron, would be a pleasant reminiscence," said his friend, with a
+smile, "if you really insist."
+
+"All, Bonker,--I vill not keep vun! I can get more. No, you most take zem
+all!"
+
+Mr Bunker opened his bag and put in the box without a word.
+
+"You most write," said the Baron, "tell me vere you are. I shall not tell
+any soul, bot ven I can, I shall gom up, and ve shall sup togezzer vunce
+more. Pairhaps ve may haf anozzer adventure, ha, ha!"
+
+The Baron's laugh was almost too hearty to be true.
+
+"I shall let you know, as soon as I find a room. It won't be in the
+Mayonaise this time! Good-bye: good sport and luck in love!"
+
+"Good-bye, my frient, good-bye," said the Baron, squeezing his hand.
+
+His friend was half out of the door when he turned, and said with an
+intonation quite foreign either to Beveridge or Bunker, and yet which came
+very pleasantly, "I forgot to warn you of one thing when I advised you to
+try the _rôle_ of certified lunatic--you are not likely to make so good a
+friend as I have."
+
+He shut the door noiselessly and was gone.
+
+The Baron stood in the middle of the floor for fully five minutes, looking
+blankly at the closed door; then with a sigh he turned out the light and
+tumbled into bed again.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 PART IV.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The Dover express was nearing town: evening had begun to draw in, and from
+the wayside houses people saw the train roar by like a huge glowworm; but
+they could hardly guess that it was hurrying two real actors to the climax
+of a real comedy.
+
+From the opposite sides of a first-class carriage these two looked
+cheerfully at one another. The Channel was safely behind them, London was
+close ahead, and the piston of the engine seemed to thump a triumphal air.
+
+"We've done it, Twiddel, my boy!" said the one.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" replied the other.
+
+"_And_ myself," added his friend.
+
+"Yes," said Twiddel; "you played your part uncommonly well, Welsh."
+
+"It was the deuce of a fine spree!" sighed Welsh.
+
+"The deuce," assented Twiddel.
+
+"I'm only sorry it's all over," Welsh went on, gazing regretfully up at
+the lamp of the carriage. "I'd give the remains of my character and my
+chance of a public funeral to be starting again from Paris by the morning
+train!"
+
+Twiddel laughed.
+
+"With the same head you had that morning?"
+
+"Yes, by George! Even with the same mile of dusty gullet!"
+
+"It's all over now," said Twiddel, philosophically, and yet rather
+nervously--"at least the amusing part of it."
+
+"All the fun, my boy, all the fun. All the dinners and the drinks, and the
+touching of hats to the aristocratic travellers, and the girls that
+sighed, and the bowing and scraping. Do you remember the sporting baronet
+who knew my uncle? Now, I'm plain Robert Welsh, whose uncles, as far as I
+am aware, don't know a baronet among 'em."
+
+He smiled a little sardonically.
+
+"And the baron at Fogelschloss," said Twiddel.
+
+"Who insisted on learning my pedigree back to Alfred the Great! Gad, I
+gave it him, though, and I doubt whether the real Essington could have
+done as much. I'd rather surprise some of these noblemen if I turned up
+again in my true character!"
+
+"Thank the Lord, we're not likely to meet them again!" exclaimed the
+doctor, devoutly.
+
+"No," said Welsh; "here endeth the second lesson."
+
+His friend, who had been well brought up, looked a trifle uncomfortable at
+this quotation.
+
+"I say," he remarked a few minutes later, "we haven't finished yet. We've
+got to get the man out again, and hand him back to his friends."
+
+"Cured," said Welsh, with a laugh.
+
+"I wonder how he is?"
+
+"We'll soon see."
+
+They fell silent again, while the train hurried nearer and nearer London
+town. Welsh seemed to be musing on some nice point, it might be of
+conscience, it might also conceivably be of a more practical texture. At
+last he said, "There's just one thing, old man. What about the fee?"
+
+"I'll get a cheque for it, I suppose," his friend replied, with an almost
+excessive air of mastery over the problem.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Welsh; "you know what I mean. It's a delicate question
+and all that, but, hang it, it's got to be answered."
+
+"What has?"
+
+"The division of the spoil."
+
+Twiddel looked dignified.
+
+"I'll see you get your share, old man," he answered, easily.
+
+"But what share?"
+
+"You suggested £100, I think."
+
+"Out of £500--when I've done all the deceiving and told all the lies! Come,
+old man!"
+
+"Well, what do you want?"
+
+"Do you remember a certain crisis when we'd made a slip----"
+
+"You'd made a slip!"
+
+"_We_ had made a slip, and you wanted to chuck the game and bolt? Do you
+remember also the terms I proposed when I offered to beard the local god
+almighty in his lair and explain it all away, and how he became our bosom
+pal and we were saved?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"£300 to me, £200 to you," said Welsh, decisively.
+
+"Rot, old man. I'll share fairly, if you insist. £250 apiece, will that
+do?"
+
+Welsh said nothing, but his face was no longer the countenance of the
+jovial adventurer.
+
+"It will have to, I suppose," he replied, at length.
+
+It was with this little cloud on the horizon that they saw the lights of
+London twinkle through the windows, and were carried into the clamour of
+the platforms.
+
+They both drove first to Twiddel's rooms; and as they looked out once more
+on the life and lights and traffic of the streets, their faces cleared
+again.
+
+"We'll have a merry evening!" cried Welsh.
+
+"A little supper," suggested Twiddel; "a music-hall----"
+
+"Et cetera," added Welsh, with a laugh.
+
+The doctor had written of their coming, and they found a fire in the back
+room, and the table laid.
+
+"Ah," cried Welsh, "this looks devilish comfortable."
+
+"A letter for me," said Twiddel; "from Billson, I think."
+
+He read it and threw it to his friend, remarking, "I call this rather cool
+of him."
+
+Welsh read--
+
+"DEAR GEORGE,--I am just off for three weeks' holiday. Sorry for leaving
+your practice, but I think it can look after itself till you return.
+
+"You have only had two patients, and one fee between them. The second man
+vanished mysteriously. I shall tell you about it when I come back. He
+boned a bill, too, I fancy, but the story will keep.
+
+"I am looking forward to hearing the true tale of your adventures. Good
+luck to you.--Yours ever,
+
+                                                          THOMAS BILLSON."
+
+"Boned a bill?" exclaimed Welsh. "What bill, I wonder?"
+
+"Something that came when I was away, I suppose. Hang it, I think Billson
+might have looked after things better!"
+
+"It sounds queer," said Welsh, reflectively; "I wonder what it was?"
+
+"Confound Billson, he might have told me," observed the doctor. "But, I
+say, you know we have something more practical to see to."
+
+"Getting the man out again?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, let's have a little grub first."
+
+Twiddel rang the bell, and the frowsy little maid entered, carrying a
+letter on a tray.
+
+"Dinner," said he.
+
+"Please, sir," began the maid, holding out the tray, "this come for you
+near a month agow, but Missis she bin and forgot to send it hafter you."
+
+"Confound her!" said Twiddel, taking the letter.
+
+He looked at the envelope, and remarked with a little start of nervous
+excitement, "From Dr Congleton."
+
+"News of Mr Beveridge," laughed Welsh.
+
+The doctor read the first few lines, and then, as if he had got an
+electric shock, the letter fell from his hand, and an expression of the
+most utter and lively consternation came over his face.
+
+"Heavens!" he ejaculated, "it's all up."
+
+"What's up?" cried Welsh, snatching at the letter.
+
+"He's run away!"
+
+Welsh looked at him for a moment in some astonishment, and then burst out
+laughing.
+
+"What a joke!" he cried; "I don't see anything to make a fuss about. We're
+jolly well rid of him."
+
+"The fee! I won't get a penny till I bring him back. And the whole thing
+will be found out!"
+
+As the full meaning of this predicament burst upon Welsh, his face
+underwent a change by no means pleasant to watch. For a full minute he
+swore, and then an ominous silence fell upon the room.
+
+Twiddel was the first to recover himself.
+
+"Let me see the letter," he said; "I haven't finished it."
+
+Welsh read it aloud--
+
+"DEAR TWIDDEL,--I regret to inform you that the patient, Francis Beveridge,
+whom you placed under my care, has escaped from Clankwood. We have made
+every inquiry consistent with strict privacy, but unfortunately have not
+yet been able to lay our hands upon him. We only know that he left
+Ashditch Junction in the London express, and was seen walking out of St
+Euston's Cross. How he has been able to maintain himself in concealment
+without money or clothes, I am unable to imagine.
+
+"As no inquiries have been made for him by his cousin Mr Welsh, or any
+other of his friends or relatives, I am writing to you that you may inform
+them, and I hope that this letter may follow you abroad without delay. I
+may add that the circumstances of his escape showed most unusual cunning,
+and could not possibly have been guarded against.
+
+"Trusting that you are having a pleasant holiday, I am, yours very truly,
+
+                                                   ADOLPHUS S. CONGLETON."
+
+The two looked at one another in silence for a minute, and then Welsh
+said, fiercely, "You must catch him again, Twiddel. Do you think I am
+going to have all my risk and trouble for nothing?"
+
+"_I_ must catch him! Do you suppose _I_ let him loose?"
+
+"You must catch him, all the same."
+
+"I shan't bother my head about him," answered Twiddel, with the
+recklessness of despair.
+
+"You won't? You want to have the story known, I suppose?"
+
+"I don't care if it is."
+
+Welsh looked at him for a minute: then he jumped up and exclaimed, "You
+need a drink, old man. Let's hurry up that slavey."
+
+With the first course their countenances cleared a little, with the second
+they were almost composed, by the end of dinner they had started
+plot-hatching hopefully again.
+
+"It's any odds on the man's still being in town," said Welsh. "He had no
+money or clothes, and evidently he hasn't gone to any of his friends, or
+the whole story would have been out. Now, there is nowhere where a man can
+lie low so well, especially if he is hard up, as London. I can answer from
+experience. He is hardly likely to be in the West End, or the best class
+of suburbs, so we've something to go upon at once. We must go to a private
+inquiry office and put men on his track, and then we must take the town in
+beats ourselves. So much is clear; do you see?"
+
+"And hadn't we better find out whether anything more is known at
+Clankwood?" suggested Twiddel. "Dr Congleton wrote a month ago; perhaps
+they have caught him by this time."
+
+"Hardly likely, I'm afraid; he'd have written to you if they had. Still,
+we can but ask."
+
+"But, I say!" the doctor suddenly exclaimed, "people may find out that I'm
+back without him."
+
+Welsh was equal to the emergency.
+
+"You must leave again at once," he said decisively, rising from the table;
+"and there's no good wasting time, either."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the bewildered doctor, who had not yet
+assimilated the criminal point of view.
+
+"We'll put our luggage straight on to a cab, drive off to other rooms--I
+know a cheap place that will do--and if by any chance inquiries are made,
+people must be told that you are still abroad. Nobody must hear of your
+coming home to-night."
+
+"Is it----" began Twiddel, dubiously.
+
+"Is it what?" snapped his friend.
+
+"Is it worth it?"
+
+"Is £500, not to speak of two reputations, worth it! Come on!"
+
+The unfortunate doctor sighed, and rose too. He was beginning to think
+that the nefarious acquisition of fees might have drawbacks after all.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The chronicle must now go back a few days and follow another up-express.
+
+"I must either be a clergyman or a policeman," Mr Bunker reflected, in the
+corner of his carriage; "they seem to me to be on the whole the two least
+molested professions. Each certainly has a livery which, if its occupier
+is ordinarily judicious, ought to serve as a certificate of sanity. To me
+all policemen are precisely alike, but I daresay they know them apart in
+the force, and as all the beats and crossings are presumably taken
+already, I might excite suspicion by my mere superfluity. Besides, a
+theatrical costumier's uniform would possibly lack some ridiculous but
+essential detail."
+
+He lit another cigar and looked humorously out of the window.
+
+"I shall take orders. An amateur theatrical clergyman's costume will be
+more comfortable, and probably less erroneous. They allow them some
+latitude, I believe; and I don't suppose there are any visible ordination
+scars whose absence would give me away. I shall certainly study the first
+reverend brother I meet to see."
+
+Thus wisely ruminating, he arrived in London at a very early hour on a
+chilly morning, and drove straight to a small hotel near King's Cross,
+where the landlord was much gratified at receiving so respectable a guest
+as the Rev. Alexander Butler. ("I must begin with a B." said Mr Bunker to
+himself; "I think it's lucky.")
+
+It is true the reverend gentleman was in evening clothes, while his hat
+and coat had a singularly secular, not to say fashionable, appearance;
+but, as he mentioned casually in the course of some extremely affable
+remarks, he had been dining in a country house, and had not thought it
+worth while changing before he left. After breakfasting he dressed himself
+in an equally secular suit of tweeds and went out, he mentioned
+incidentally, to call at his tailor's for his professional habit, which he
+seemed surprised to learn had not yet been forwarded to the hotel.
+
+A visit to a certain well-known firm of theatrical costumiers was followed
+by his reappearance in a cab accompanied by a bulky brown paper parcel;
+and presently he emerged from his room attired more consistently with his
+office, much to his own satisfaction, for, as he observed, "I cannot say I
+approve of clergymen masquerading as laymen."
+
+His opinion on the converse circumstance was not expressed.
+
+Much to his landlord's disappointment, he informed him that he should
+probably leave again that afternoon, and then he went out for a walk.
+
+About half an hour later he was once more in the street where, not so very
+long ago, a very exciting cab-race had finished. He strolled slowly past
+Dr Twiddel's house. The blinds of the front room were down; at that hour
+there was no sign of life about it, and he saw nothing at all to arrest
+his attention. Then he looked down the other side of the street, and to
+his great satisfaction spied a card, with the legend "Apartments to let,"
+in one of the first-floor windows of a house immediately opposite.
+
+He rang the bell, and in a moment a rotund and loquacious landlady
+appeared. Yes, the drawing-room was to let; would the reverend gentleman
+come up and see it? Mr Bunker went up, and approved. They readily agreed
+upon terms, and the landlady, charmed with her new lodger's appearance and
+manners, no less than with the respectability of his profession, proceeded
+to descant at some length on the quiet, comfort, and numerous other
+advantages of the apartments.
+
+"Just the very plice you wants, sir. We 'ave 'ad clerical gentlemen 'ere
+before, sir; in fact, there's one a-staying 'ere now, second floor,--you
+may know of 'im, sir,--the Reverend Mr John Duggs; a very pleasant
+gentleman you'll find him, sir. I'll tell 'im you're 'ere, sir; 'e'd be
+sure to like to meet another gentleman of the syme cloth, has they say."
+
+Somehow or other the Rev. Mr Butler failed to display the hearty pleasure
+at this announcement that the worthy Mrs Gabbon had naturally expected.
+
+Aloud he merely said, "Indeed," politely, but with no unusual interest.
+
+Within himself he reflected, "The deuce take Mr John Duggs! However, I
+want the rooms, and a man must risk something."
+
+As a precautionary measure he visited a second-hand bookseller on his way
+back, and purchased a small assortment of the severest-looking works on
+theology they kept in stock; and these, with his slender luggage, he
+brought round to Mrs Gabbon's in the course of the afternoon.
+
+He looked carefully out of his sitting-room window, but the doctor's
+blinds were still down, and he saw no one coming or going about the house;
+so he began his inquiries by calling up his landlady.
+
+"I have been troubled with lumbago, Mrs Gabbon," he began.
+
+"Dearie me, sir," said Mrs Gabbon, "I'm sorry to 'ear that; you that looks
+so 'ealthy too! Well, one never knows what's be'ind a 'appy hexterior,
+does one, sir?"
+
+"No, Mrs Gabbon," replied Mr Bunker, solemnly; "one never knows what even
+a clergyman's coat conceals."
+
+"That's very true, sir. In the midst of life we are in----"
+
+"Lumbago," interposed Mr Bunker.
+
+Mrs Gabbon looked a trifle startled.
+
+"Well," he continued with the same gravity, "I may unfortunately have
+occasion to consult a doctor----"
+
+"There's Dr Smith," interrupted Mrs Gabbon, her equanimity quite restored
+by his ecclesiastical tone and the mention of ailments; "'e attended my
+poor dear 'usband hall through his last illness; an huncommon clever
+doctor, sir, as I ought to know, sir, bein'----"
+
+"No doubt an excellent man, Mrs Gabbon; but I should like to know of one
+as near at hand as possible. Now I see the name of a Dr Twiddel----"
+
+"I wouldn't recommend 'im, sir," said Mrs Gabbon, pursing her mouth.
+
+"Indeed? Why not?"
+
+"'E attended Mrs Brown's servant-girl, sir,--she bein' the lady as has the
+'ouse next door,--and what he give _'er_ didn't do no good. Mrs Brown tell
+me 'erself."
+
+"Still, in an emergency----"
+
+"Besides which, he ain't at 'ome, sir."
+
+"Where has he gone?"
+
+"Abroad, they do say, sir; though I don't rightly know much about 'im."
+
+"Has he been away long?"
+
+Mrs Gabbon considered.
+
+"It must 'ave bin before the middle of November he went, sir."
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed Mr Bunker, keenly, though apparently more to himself than
+his landlady.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir?"
+
+"The middle of November, you say? That's a long holiday for a doctor to
+take."
+
+"'E 'avn't no practice to speak of,--not as I knows of, leastways."
+
+"What sort of a man is he--young or old?"
+
+"By my opinion, sir, 'e's too young. I don't 'old by them young doctors.
+Now Dr Smith, sir----"
+
+"Dr Twiddel is quite a young man, then?"
+
+"What I'd call little better than a boy, sir. They tell me they lets 'em
+loose very young nowadays."
+
+"About twenty-five, say?"
+
+"'E might be that, sir; but I don't know much about 'im, sir. Now Dr
+Smith, sir, 'e's different."
+
+In fact at this point Mrs Gabbon showed such a tendency to turn the
+conversation back to the merits of Dr Smith and the precise nature of Mr
+Bunker's ailment, that her lodger, in despair, requested her to bring up a
+cup of tea as speedily as possible.
+
+"Before the middle of November," he said to himself. "It is certainly a
+curious coincidence."
+
+To a gentleman of Mr Bunker's sociable habits and active mind, the
+prospect of sitting day by day in the company of his theological treatises
+and talkative landlady, and watching an apparently uninhabited house,
+seemed at first sight even less entertaining than a return to Clankwood.
+But, as he said of himself, he possessed a kind of easy workaday
+philosophy, and, besides that, an apparently irresistible attraction for
+the incidents of life.
+
+He had barely finished his cup of tea, and was sitting over the fire
+smoking one of the Baron's cigars and looking through one of the few books
+he had brought that bore no relation to divinity, his feet high upon the
+side of the mantelpiece, his ready-made costume perhaps a little more
+unbuttoned than the strictest propriety might approve, and a stiff glass
+of whisky-and-water at his elbow, when there came a rap at his door.
+
+In response to his "Come in," a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in clerical
+attire, entered. He had a broad, bearded face, a dull eye, and an
+indescribably average aspect.
+
+"The devil! Mr John Duggs himself," thought Mr Bunker, hastily adopting a
+more conventional attitude and feeling for his button-holes.
+
+"Ah--er--Mr Butler, I believe?" said the stranger, with an apologetic air.
+
+"The same," replied Mr Bunker, smiling affably.
+
+"I," continued his visitor, advancing with more confidence, "am Mr Duggs.
+I am dwelling at present in the apartment immediately above you, and
+hearing of the arrival of a fellow-clergyman, through my worthy friend Mrs
+Gabbon, I have taken the liberty of calling. She gave me to understand
+that you were not undesirous of making my acquaintance, Mr Butler."
+
+"The deuce, she did!" thought Mr Butler. Aloud he answered most politely,
+"I am honoured, Mr Duggs. Won't you sit down?"
+
+First casting a wary eye upon a chair, Mr Duggs seated himself carefully
+on the edge of it.
+
+"It is quite evident," thought Mr Bunker, "that he has spotted something
+wrong. I believe a bobby would have been safer after all."
+
+He assumed the longest face he could draw, and remarked sententiously,
+"The weather has been unpleasantly cold of late, Mr Duggs."
+
+He flattered himself that his guest seemed instantly more at his ease.
+Certainly he replied with as much cordiality as a man with such a dull eye
+could be supposed to display.
+
+"It has, Mr Butler; in fact I have suffered from a chill for some weeks.
+Ahem!"
+
+"Have something to drink," suggested Mr Bunker, sympathetically. "I'm
+trying a little whisky myself, as a cure for cold."
+
+"I--ah--I am sorry. I do not touch spirits."
+
+"I, on the contrary, am glad to hear it. Too few of our clergymen nowadays
+support the cause of temperance by example."
+
+Mr Bunker felt a little natural pride in this happily expressed sentiment,
+but his visitor merely turned his cold eye on the whisky bottle, and
+breathed heavily.
+
+"Confound him!" he thought; "I'll give him something to snort at if he is
+going to conduct himself like this."
+
+"Have a cigar?" he asked aloud.
+
+Mr Duggs seemed to regard the cigar-box a little less unkindly than the
+whisky bottle; but after a careful look at it he replied, "I am afraid
+they seem a little too strong for me. I am a light smoker, Mr Butler."
+
+"Really," smiled Mr Bunker; "so many virtues in one room reminds me of the
+virgins of Gomorrah."
+
+"I beg your pardon? The what?" asked Mr Duggs, with a startled stare.
+
+Mr Bunker suspected that he had made a slip in his biblical reminiscences,
+but he continued to smile imperturbably, and inquired with a perfect air
+of surprise, "Haven't you read the novel I referred to?"
+
+Mr Duggs appeared a little relieved, but he answered blankly enough,
+"I--ah--have not. What is the book you refer to?"
+
+"Oh, don't you know? To tell the truth, I forget the title. It's by a
+somewhat well-known lady writer of religious fiction. A Miss--her name
+escapes me at this moment."
+
+In fact, as Mr Bunker had no idea how long his friend might be dwelling in
+the apartment immediately above him, he thought it more prudent to make no
+statement that could possibly be checked.
+
+"I am no great admirer of religious fiction of any kind," replied Mr
+Duggs, "particularly that written by emotional females."
+
+"No," said Mr Bunker, pleasantly; "I should imagine your own doctrines
+were not apt to err on the sentimental side."
+
+"I am not aware that I have said anything to you about my--doctrines, as
+you call them, Mr Butler."
+
+"Still, don't you think one can generally tell a man's creed from his
+coat, and his sympathies from the way he cocks his hat?"
+
+"I think," replied Mr Duggs, "that our ideas of our vocation are somewhat
+different."
+
+"Mine is, I admit," said Mr Bunker, who had come to the conclusion that
+the strain of playing his part was really too great, and was now being
+happily carried along by his tongue.
+
+Mr Duggs for a moment was evidently disposed to give battle, but thinking
+better of it, he contented himself with frowning at his younger opponent,
+and abruptly changed the subject.
+
+"May I ask what position you hold in the church, Mr Butler?"
+
+"Why," began Mr Bunker, lightly: it was on the tip of his tongue to say "a
+clergyman, of course," when he suddenly recollected that he might be
+anything from the rank of curate up to the people who wear gaiters (and
+who these were precisely he didn't know). An ingenious solution suggested
+itself. He replied with a preliminary inquiry, "Have you ever been in the
+East, Mr Duggs?"
+
+"I regret to say I have not hitherto had the opportunity."
+
+"Thank the Lord for that," thought Mr Bunker. "I have been a missionary,"
+he said quietly, and looked dreamily into the fire.
+
+It was a happy move. Mr Duggs was visibly impressed.
+
+"Ah?" he said. "Indeed? I am much interested to learn this, Mr Butler.
+It--ah--gives me perhaps a somewhat different view of your--ah--opinions.
+Where did your work lie?"
+
+"China," replied Mr Bunker, thinking it best to keep as far abroad as
+possible.
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed Mr Duggs. "This is really extremely fortunate. I am at
+present, Mr Butler, studying the religions and customs of China at the
+British Museum, with a view to going out there myself very shortly. I
+already feel I know almost as much about that most interesting country as
+if I had lived there. I should like to talk with you at some length on the
+subject."
+
+Mr Bunker saw that it was time to put an end to this conversation, at
+whatever minor risk of perturbing his visitor. He had been a little
+alarmed, too, by noticing that Mr Duggs' dull eye had wandered frequently
+to his theological library, which with his usual foresight he had strewn
+conspicuously on the table, and that any expression it had was rather of
+suspicious curiosity than gratification.
+
+"I should like to hear some of your experiences," Mr Duggs continued. "In
+what province did you work?"
+
+"In Hung Hang Ho," replied Mr Bunker. His visitor looked puzzled, but he
+continued boldly, "My experiences were somewhat unpleasant. I became
+engaged to a mandarin's daughter--a charming girl. I was suspected,
+however, of abetting an illicit traffic in Chinese lanterns. My companions
+were manicured alive, and I only made my escape in a pagoda, or a junk--I
+was in too much of a hurry to notice which--at the imminent peril of my
+life. Don't go to China, Mr Duggs."
+
+Mr Duggs rose.
+
+"Young man," he said, sternly, "put away that fatal bottle. I can only
+suppose that it is under the influence of drink that you have ventured to
+tell me such an irreverent and impossible story."
+
+"Sir," began Mr Bunker, warmly,--for he thought that an outburst of
+indignation would probably be the safest way of concluding the
+interview,--when he stopped abruptly and listened. All the time his ears
+had been alive to anything going on outside, and now he heard a cab rattle
+up and stop close by. It might be at Dr Twiddel's, he thought, and,
+turning from his visitor, he sprang to the window.
+
+Remarking distantly, "I hear a cab; it is possibly a friend I am
+expecting," Mr Duggs stepped to the other window.
+
+It was only, however, a hansom at the door of the next house, out of which
+a very golden-haired young lady was stepping. "Aha," said Mr Bunker, quite
+forgetting the indignant _rôle_ he had begun to play; "rather nice! Is
+this your friend, Mr Duggs?"
+
+Mr Duggs gave him one look of his dull eyes, and walked straight for the
+door. As he went out he merely remarked, "Our acquaintance has been brief,
+Mr Butler, but it has been quite sufficient."
+
+"Quite," thought Mr Bunker.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+
+
+That was Mr Bunker's first and last meeting with the Rev. John Duggs, and
+he took no small credit to himself for having so effectually incensed his
+neighbour, without, at the same time, bringing suspicion on anything more
+pertinent than his sobriety.
+
+And yet sometimes in the course of the next three days he would have been
+thankful to see him again, if only to have another passage-of-arms. The
+time passed most wearily; the consulting-room blinds were never raised; no
+cabs stopped before the doctor's door; nobody except the little servant
+ever moved about the house.
+
+He could think of no plan better than waiting; and so he waited, showing
+himself seldom in the streets, and even sitting behind the curtain while
+he watched at the window. After writing at some length to the Baron he had
+no further correspondence that he could distract himself with; he was even
+forced once or twice to dip into the theological works. Mrs Gabbon had
+evidently "'eard sommat" from Mr Duggs, and treated him to little of her
+society. The boredom became so excessive that he decided he must make a
+move soon, however rash it was.
+
+The only active step he took, and indeed the only step he saw his way to
+take, was a call on Dr Twiddel's _locum_. But luck seemed to run dead
+against him. Dr Billson had departed "on his holiday," he was informed,
+and would not return for three weeks. So Mr Bunker was driven back to his
+window and the Baron's cigars.
+
+It was the evening of his fourth day in Mrs Gabbon's rooms. He had
+finished a modest dinner and was dealing himself hands at piquet with an
+old pack of cards, when he heard the rattle of a cab coming up the street.
+The usual faint flicker of hope rose: the cab stopped below him, the
+flicker burned brighter, and in an instant he was at the window. He opened
+the slats of the blind, and the flicker was aflame. Before the doctor's
+house a four-wheeled cab was standing laden with luggage, and two men were
+going up the steps. He watched the luggage being taken in and the cab
+drive away, and then he turned radiantly back to the fire.
+
+"The curtain is up," he said to himself. "What's the first act to be?"
+
+Presently he put on his wide-awake hat and went out for a stroll. He
+walked slowly past the doctor's house, but there was nothing to be seen or
+heard. Remembering the room at the back, he was not surprised to find no
+chink of light about the front windows, and thinking it better not to run
+the risk of being seen lingering there, he walked on. He was in such good
+spirits, and had been cooped up so continually for the last few days, that
+he went on and on, and it was not till about a couple of hours had passed
+that he approached his rooms again. As he came down the street he was
+surprised to see by the light of a lamp that another four-wheeler was
+standing before the doctor's house, also laden with luggage.
+
+Two men jumped in, one after another, and when he had come at his fastest
+walk within twenty yards or so, the cabman whipped up and drove rapidly
+away, luggage and men and all.
+
+He looked up and down for a hansom, but there were none to be seen. For a
+few yards he set off at a run in pursuit, and then, finding that the horse
+was being driven at a great rate, and remembering the paucity of stray
+cabs in the quiet streets and roads round about, he stopped and considered
+the question.
+
+"After all," he reflected, "it may not have been Dr Twiddel who drove
+away; in fact, if it was he who arrived in the first cab, it's any odds
+against it. Pooh! It can't be. Still, it's a curious thing if two cabs
+loaded with luggage came to the house in the same evening, and one drove
+away without unlading."
+
+With his spirits a little damped in spite of his philosophy, he went back
+to his rooms.
+
+In the morning the consulting-room blinds were still down, and the house
+looked as deserted as ever.
+
+He waited till lunch, and then he went out boldly and pulled the doctor's
+bell. The same little maid appeared, but she evidently did not recognise
+the fashionable patient who disappeared so mysteriously in the
+demure-looking clergyman at the door.
+
+"Is Dr Twiddel at home?"
+
+"No, sir, he ain't back yet."
+
+"He hasn't been back?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Mr Bunker looked at her keenly, and then said to himself, "She is lying."
+
+He thought he would try a chance shot.
+
+"But he was expected home last night, I believe."
+
+The maid looked a little staggered.
+
+"He ain't been," she replied.
+
+"I happen to have heard that he called here," he hazarded again.
+
+This time she was evidently put about.
+
+"He ain't been here--as I knows of."
+
+He slipped half-a-crown into her hand.
+
+"Think again," he said, in his most winning accents.
+
+The poor little maid was obviously in a dilemma.
+
+"Do you want him particular, sir?"
+
+"Particularly."
+
+She fidgeted a little.
+
+"He told me," he pursued, "that he might look in at his rooms last night.
+He left no message for me?"
+
+"What name, sir?"
+
+"Mr Butler."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then, my dear," said Mr Bunker, with his most insinuating smile, "he was
+here for a little, you can't deny?"
+
+At the maid's embarrassed glance down his long coat, he suddenly realised
+that there was perhaps a distinction between lay and clerical smiles.
+
+"He might have just looked in, sir," she admitted.
+
+"But he didn't want it known?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Quite right, I advised him not to, and you did very well not to tell me
+at first."
+
+He smiled approvingly and made a pretence of turning away.
+
+"Oh, by the way," he added, stopping as if struck by an after-thought, "Is
+he still in town? He promised to leave word for me, but he has evidently
+forgotten."
+
+"I don't know, sir; 'e didn't say."
+
+"What? He left _no_ word at all?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Mr Bunker held out another half-crown.
+
+"It's truth, sir," said the maid, drawing back; "we don't know where 'e
+is."
+
+"Take it, all the same; you have been very discreet. You have no idea?"
+
+The maid hesitated.
+
+"I _did_ 'ear Mr Welsh say something about lookin' for rooms," she
+allowed.
+
+"In London?"
+
+"I expect so, sir; but 'e didn't say no more."
+
+"Mr Welsh is the friend who came with him, of course?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Thanks," said Mr Bunker. "By the way, Dr Twiddel might not like your
+telling this even to a friend, so you needn't say I called, I'll tell him
+myself when I see him, and I won't give you away."
+
+He smiled benignly, and the little maid thanked him quite gratefully.
+
+"Evidently," he thought as he went away, "I was meant for something in the
+detective line."
+
+He returned to his rooms to meditate, and the longer he thought the more
+puzzled he became, and yet the more convinced that he had taken up a
+thread that must lead him somewhere.
+
+"As for my plan of action," he considered, "I see nothing better for it
+than staying where I am--and watching. This mysterious doctor must surely
+steal back some night. Now and then I might go round the town and try a
+cast in the likeliest bars--oh, hang me, though! I forgot I was a
+clergyman."
+
+That night he had a welcome distraction in the shape of a letter from the
+Baron. It was written from Brierley Park, in the Baron's best pointed
+German hand, and it ran thus--
+
+"MY DEAR BUNKER,--I was greatly more delighted than I am able to express to
+you from the amusing correspondence you addressed me. How glad I am, I can
+assure you, that you are still in safety and comfort. Remember, my dear
+friend, to call for me when need arises, although I do think you can guard
+yourself as well as most alone.
+
+"This leaves me happy and healthful, and in utmost prosperity with the
+kind Sir Richard and his charming Lady. You English certainly know well
+how to cause time to pass with mirth. About instruction I say less!
+
+"They have talked of you here. I laugh and keep my tongue when they wonder
+who he is and whither gone away. Now that anger is passed and they see I
+myself enjoy the joke, they say, and especially do the ladies, (You
+humbug, Bunker!) 'How charming was the imitation, Baron!' You can indeed
+win the hearts, if wishful so. The Lady Grillyer and her unexpressable
+daughter I have often seen. To-day they come here for two nights. I did
+suggest it to Lady Brierley, and I fear she did suspect the condition of
+my heart; but she charmingly smiled, she asked them, and they come!
+
+"The Countess, I fear, does not now love you much, my friend; but then she
+knows not the truth. The Lady Alicia is strangely silent on the matter of
+Mr Bunker, but in time she also doubtless will forgive. (At this Mr Bunker
+smiled in some amusement.)
+
+"When they leave Brierley I also shall take my departure on the following
+day, that is in three days. Therefore write hastily, Bunker, and name the
+place and hour where we shall meet again and dine festively. I expect a
+most reverent clergyman and much instructive discourse. Ah, humbug!--Thine
+always,
+
+                                                 RUDOLPH VON BLITZENBERG."
+
+"_P.S._--She is sometimes more kind and sometimes so distant. Ah, I know
+not what to surmise! But to-morrow or the next my fate will be decided.
+Give me of your prayers, my reverent friend!
+
+                                                                R. VON B."
+
+"Dear old Baron!" said Mr Bunker. "Well, I've at least a dinner to look
+forward to."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Dr Twiddel, meanwhile, was no less anxious to make the Rev. Alexander
+Butler's acquaintance than the Rev. Alexander Butler was to make his. Not
+that he was aware of that gentleman's recent change of identity and
+occupation; but most industrious endeavors to find a certain Mr Beveridge
+were made in the course of the next few days. He and Welsh were living
+modestly and obscurely in the neighbourhood of the Pentonville Road,
+scouring the town by day, studying a map and laying the most ingenious
+plans at night. Welsh's first effort, as soon as they were established in
+their new quarters, was to induce his friend to go down to Clankwood and
+make further inquiries, but this Twiddel absolutely declined to do.
+
+"My dear chap," he answered, "supposing anything were found out, or even
+suspected, what am I to say? Old Congleton knows me well, and for his own
+sake doesn't want to make a fuss; but if he really spots that something is
+wrong, he will be so afraid of his reputation that he'd give me away like
+a shot."
+
+"How are you going to give things away by going down and seeing him?"
+
+"_If_ they have guessed anything, I'll give it away. I haven't your cheek,
+you know, and tact, and that sort of thing; you'd much better go
+yourself."
+
+"_I?_ It isn't my business."
+
+"You seem to be making it yours. Besides, Dr Congleton thinks it is. You
+passed yourself off as the chap's cousin, and it is quite natural for you
+to go and inquire."
+
+Welsh pondered the point. "Hang it," he said at last, "it would do just as
+well to write. Perhaps it's safer after all."
+
+"Well, you write."
+
+"Why should I, rather than you?"
+
+"Because you're his cousin."
+
+Welsh considered again. "Well, I don't suppose it matters much. I'll
+write, if you're afraid."
+
+It was these amiable little touches in his friend's conversation that
+helped to make Twiddel's lot at this time so pleasant. In fact, the doctor
+was learning a good deal about human nature in cloudy weather.
+
+With great care Welsh composed a polite note of anxious inquiry, and by
+return of post received the following reply:--
+
+"MY DEAR SIR,--I regret to inform you that we have not so far recovered
+your cousin Mr Beveridge. In all probability, however, this cannot be long
+delayed now, as he was seen within the last week at a country house in
+Dampshire, and is known to have fled to London immediately on his
+recognition, but before he could be secured. He was then clean shaved, and
+had been passing under the name of Francis Bunker. We are making strict
+inquiries for him in London.
+
+"Nobody can regret the unfortunate circumstance of his escape more than I,
+and, in justice to myself and my institution, I can assure you that it was
+only through the most unforeseen and remarkable ingenuity on your cousin's
+part that it occurred.
+
+"Trusting that I may soon be able to inform you of his recovery, I am,
+yours very truly,
+
+                                                   "ADOLPHUS S. CONGLETON.
+
+Their ardour was, if possible, increased by Dr Congleton's letter. Mr
+Beveridge was almost certainly in London, and they knew now that they must
+look for a clean-shaved man. Two private inquiry detectives were at work;
+and on their own account they had mapped the likeliest parts of London
+into beats, visiting every bar and restaurant in turn, and occasionally
+hanging about stations and the stopping-places for 'buses.
+
+It was dreadfully hard work, and after four days of it, even Welsh began
+to get a little sickened.
+
+"Hang it," he said in the evening, "I haven't had a decent dinner since we
+came back. Mr Bunker can go to the devil for to-night, I'm going to dine
+decently. I'm sick of going round pubs, and not even stopping to have a
+drink."
+
+"So am I," replied Twiddel, cordially; "where shall we go?"
+
+"The Café Maccarroni," suggested Welsh; "we can't afford a West-end place,
+and they give one a very decent dinner there."
+
+The Café Maccarroni in Holborn is nominally of foreign
+extraction,--certainly the waiters and the stout proprietor come from
+sunnier lands,--and many of the diners you can hear talking in strange
+tongues, with quick gesticulations. But for the most part they are
+respectable citizens of London, who drink Chianti because it stimulates
+cheaply and not unpleasantly. The white-painted room is bright and clean
+and seldom very crowded, the British palate can be tickled with tolerable
+joints and cutlets, and the foreign with gravy-covered odds and ends.
+Altogether, it may be recommended to such as desire to dine comfortably
+and not too conspicuously.
+
+The hour at which the two friends entered was later than most of the
+_habitués_ dine, and they had the room almost to themselves. They faced
+each other across a small table beside the wall, and very soon the
+discomforts of their researches began to seem more tolerable.
+
+"We'll catch him soon, old man," said Welsh, smiling more affably than he
+had smiled since they came back. "A day or two more of this kind of work
+and even London won't be able to conceal him any longer."
+
+"Dash it, we must," replied Twiddel, bravely. "We'll show old Congleton
+how to look for a lunatic."
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Welsh, "I think he'll be rather relieved himself.
+Waiter! another bottle of the same."
+
+The bottle arrived, and the waiter was just filling their glasses when a
+young clergyman entered the room and walked quietly towards the farther
+end. Welsh raised his glass and exclaimed, "Here's luck to ourselves,
+Twiddel, old man!"
+
+At that moment the clergyman was passing their table, and at the mention
+of this toast he started almost imperceptibly, and then, throwing a quick
+glance at the two, stopped and took a seat at the next table, with his
+back turned towards them. Welsh, who was at the farther side, looked at
+him with some annoyance, and made a sign to Twiddel to talk a little more
+quietly.
+
+To the waiter, who came with the _menu_, the clergyman explained in a
+quiet voice that he was waiting for a friend, and asked for an evening
+paper instead, in which he soon appeared to be deeply engrossed.
+
+At first the conversation went on in a lower tone, but in a few minutes
+they insensibly forgot their neighbour, and the voices rose again by
+starts.
+
+"My dear fellow," Welsh was saying, "we can discuss that afterwards; we
+haven't caught him yet."
+
+"I want to settle it now."
+
+"But I thought it was settled."
+
+"No, it wasn't," said Twiddel, with a foreign and vinous doggedness.
+
+"What do you suggest then?"
+
+"Divide it equally--£250 each."
+
+"You think you can claim half the credit for the idea and half the
+trouble?"
+
+"I can claim _all_ the risk--practically."
+
+"Pooh!" said Welsh. "You think I risked nothing? Come, come, let's talk of
+something else."
+
+"Oh, rot!" interrupted Twiddel, who by this time was decidedly flushed.
+"You needn't ride the high horse like that, you are not Mr
+Mandell-Essington any longer."
+
+With a violent start, the clergyman brought his fist crash on the table,
+and exclaimed aloud, "By Heaven, that's it!"
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+
+
+As one may suppose, everybody in the room started in great astonishment at
+this extraordinary outburst. With a sharp "Hollo!" Twiddel turned in his
+seat, to see the clergyman standing over him with a look of the keenest
+inquiry in his well-favoured face.
+
+"May I ask, Dr Twiddel, what you know of the gentleman you just named?" he
+said, with perfect politeness.
+
+The conscience-smitten doctor gazed at him blankly, and the colour
+suddenly left his face. But Welsh's nerves were stronger; and, as he
+looked hard at the stranger, a jubilant light leaped to his eyes.
+
+"It's our man!" he cried, before his friend could gather his wits. "It's
+Beveridge, or Bunker, or whatever he calls himself! Waiter!"
+
+Instantly three waiters, all agog, hurried at his summons.
+
+Mr Bunker regarded him with considerable surprise. He had quite expected
+that the pair would be thrown into confusion, but not that it would take
+this form.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he began, but Welsh interrupted him by crying to the
+leading waiter--
+
+"Fetch a four-wheeled cab and a policeman, quick!" As the man hesitated,
+he added, "This man here is an escaped lunatic."
+
+The waiter was starting for the door, when Mr Bunker stepped out quickly
+and interrupted him.
+
+"Stop one minute, waiter," he said, with a quiet, unruffled air that went
+far to establish his sanity. "Do I look like a lunatic? Kindly call the
+proprietor first."
+
+The stout proprietor was already on his way to their table, and the one or
+two other diners were beginning to gather round. Mr Bunker's manner had
+impressed even Welsh, and after his nature he took refuge in bluster.
+
+"I say, my man," he cried, "this won't pass. Somebody fetch a cab."
+
+"Vat is dees about?" asked the proprietor, coming up.
+
+"Your wine, I'm afraid, has been rather too powerful for this gentleman,"
+Mr Bunker explained, with a smile.
+
+"Look here," blustered Welsh, "do you know you've got a lunatic in the
+room?"
+
+"You can perhaps guess it," smiled Mr Bunker, indicating Welsh with his
+eyes.
+
+The waiters began to twitter, and Welsh, with an effort, pulled himself
+together.
+
+"My friend here," he said, "is Dr Twiddel, a well-known practitioner in
+London. He can tell you that he certified this man as a lunatic, and that
+he afterwards escaped from his asylum. That is so, Twiddel?"
+
+"Yes," assented Twiddel, whose colour was beginning to come back a little.
+
+"Who are you, sare?" asked the proprietor.
+
+"Show him your card, Twiddel," said Welsh, producing his own and handing
+it over.
+
+The proprietor looked at both cards, and then turned to Mr Bunker.
+
+"And who are you, sare?"
+
+"My name is Mandell-Essington."
+
+"His name----" began Welsh.
+
+"Have you a card?" interposed the proprietor.
+
+"I am sorry I have not," replied Mr Bunker (to still call him by the name
+of his choice).
+
+"His name is Francis Beveridge," said Welsh.
+
+"I beg your pardon; it is Mandell-Essington."
+
+"Any other description?" Welsh asked, with a sneer.
+
+"A gentleman, I believe."
+
+"No other occupation?"
+
+"Not unless you can call a justice of the peace such," replied Mr Bunker,
+with a smile.
+
+"And yet he disguises himself as a clergyman!" exclaimed Welsh,
+triumphantly, turning to the proprietor.
+
+Mr Bunker saw that he was caught, but he merely laughed, and observed, "My
+friend here disguises himself in liquor, a much less respectable cloak."
+
+Unfortunately the humour of this remark was somewhat thrown away on his
+present audience; indeed, coming from a professed clergyman, it produced
+an unfavourable impression.
+
+"You are not a clergyman?" said the proprietor, suspiciously.
+
+"I am glad to say I am not," replied Mr Bunker, frankly.
+
+"Den vat do you do in dis dress?"
+
+"I put it on as a compliment to the cloth; I retain it at present for
+decency," said Mr Bunker, whose tongue had now got a fair start of him.
+
+"Mad," remarked Welsh, confidentially, shrugging his shoulders with really
+excellent dramatic effect.
+
+By this time the audience were disposed to agree with him.
+
+"You can give no better account of yourself dan dis?" asked the
+proprietor.
+
+"I am anxious to," replied Mr Bunker, "but a public restaurant is not the
+place in which I choose to give it."
+
+"Fetch the cab and the policeman," said Welsh to a waiter.
+
+At this moment another gentleman entered the room, and at the sight of him
+Mr Bunker's face brightened, and he stopped the waiter by a cry of, "Wait
+one moment; here comes a gentleman who knows me."
+
+Everybody turned, and beheld a burly, very fashionably dressed young man,
+with a fair moustache and a cheerful countenance.
+
+"Ach, Bonker!" he cried.
+
+This confirmation of Mr Bunker's _aliases_ ought, one would expect, to
+have delighted the two conspirators, but, instead, it produced the most
+remarkable effect. Twiddel utterly collapsed, while even Welsh's impudence
+at last deserted him. Neither said a word as the Baron von Blitzenberg
+greeted his friend with affectionate heartiness.
+
+"My friend, zis is good for ze heart! Bot, how? vat makes it here?"
+
+"My dear Baron, the most unfortunate mistake has occurred. Two men here----"
+But at this moment he stopped in great surprise, for the Baron was staring
+hard first at Welsh and then at Twiddel.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, "Mr Mandell-Essington, I zink?"
+
+Welsh hesitated for an instant, and his hesitation was evident to all.
+Then he replied, "No, you are mistaken."
+
+"Surely I cannot be; you did stay in Fogelschloss?" said the Baron. "Is
+not zis Dr Twiddel?"
+
+"No--er--ah--yes," stammered Twiddel, looking feebly at Welsh.
+
+The Baron looked from the one to the other in great perplexity, when Mr
+Bunker, who had been much puzzled by this conversation, broke in, "Did you
+call that person Mandell-Essington?"
+
+"I cairtainly zought it vas."
+
+"Where did you meet him?"
+
+"In Bavaria, at my own castle."
+
+"You are mistaken, sir," said Welsh.
+
+"One moment, Mr Welsh," said Mr Bunker. "How long ago was this, Baron?"
+
+"Jost before I gom to London. He travelled viz zis ozzer gentleman, Dr
+Twiddel."
+
+"You are wrong, sir," persisted Welsh.
+
+"For his health," added the Baron.
+
+A light began to dawn on Mr Bunker.
+
+"His health?" he cried, and then smiled politely at Welsh.
+
+"We will talk this over, Mr Welsh."
+
+"I am sorry I happen to be going," said Welsh, taking his hat and coat.
+
+"What, without your lunatic?" asked Mr Bunker.
+
+"That is Dr Twiddel's affair, not mine. Kindly let me pass, sir."
+
+"No, Mr Welsh; if you go now, it will be in the company of that policeman
+you were so anxious to send for." There was such an unmistakable threat in
+Mr Bunker's voice and eye that Welsh hesitated. "We will talk it over, Mr
+Welsh," Mr Bunker repeated distinctly. "Kindly sit down. I have several
+things to ask you and your friend Dr Twiddel."
+
+Muttering something under his breath, Welsh hung up his coat and hat, sat
+down, and then assuming an air of great impudence, remarked, "Fire away,
+Mr Mandell-Essington--Beveridge--Bunker, or whatever you call yourself."
+
+Without paying the slightest attention to this piece of humour, Mr Bunker
+turned to the bewildered proprietor, and, to the intense disappointment of
+the audience, said, "You can leave us now, thank you; our talk is likely
+to be of a somewhat private nature." As their gallery withdrew, he drew up
+a chair for the Baron, and all four sat round the small table.
+
+"Now," said Mr Bunker to Welsh, "you will perhaps be kind enough to give
+me a precise account of your doings since the middle of November."
+
+"I'm d----d if I do," replied Welsh.
+
+"Sare," interposed the Baron in his stateliest manner, "I know not now who
+you may be, but I see you are no gentleman. Ven you are viz gentlemen--and
+noblemen--you vill please to speak respectfully."
+
+The stare that Welsh attempted in reply was somewhat ineffective.
+
+"Perhaps, Dr Twiddel, you can give the account I want?" said Mr Bunker.
+
+The poor doctor looked at his friend, hesitated, and finally stammered
+out, "I--I don't see why."
+
+Mr Bunker pulled a paper out of his pocket and showed it to him.
+
+"Perhaps this may suggest a why."
+
+When the doctor saw the bill for Mr Beveridge's linen, the last of his
+courage ebbed away. He glanced helplessly at Welsh, but his ally was now
+leaning back in his chair with such an irritating assumption of
+indifference, and the prospective fee had so obviously vanished, that he
+was suddenly seized with the most virtuous resolutions.
+
+"What do you want to know, sir?" he asked.
+
+"In the first place, how did you come to have anything to do with me?"
+
+Welsh, whose sharp wits instantly divined the weak point in the attack,
+cut in quickly, "Don't tell him if he doesn't know already!"
+
+But Twiddel's relapse to virtue was complete. "I was asked to take charge
+of you while----" He hesitated.
+
+"While I was unwell," smiled Mr Bunker. "Yes?"
+
+"I was to travel with you."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"But I--I didn't like the idea, you see; and so--in fact--Welsh suggested
+that I should take him instead."
+
+"While you locked me up in Clankwood?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr Bunker, "I must say it was a devilish humorous
+idea."
+
+At this Twiddel began to take heart again.
+
+"I am very sorry, sir, for----" he began, when the Baron interrupted
+excitedly.
+
+"Zen vat is your name, Bonker?"
+
+"_I_ am Mr Mandell-Essington, Baron."
+
+The Baron looked at the other two in turn with wide-open eyes.
+
+Then he turned indignantly upon Welsh.
+
+"You were impostor zen, sare? You gom to my house and call yourself a
+gentleman, and impose upon me, and tell of your family and your estates.
+You, a low--er--er--vat you say?--a low _cad!_ Bonker, I cannot sit at ze same
+table viz zese persons!"
+
+He rose as he spoke.
+
+"One moment, Baron! Before we send these gentlemen back to their really
+promising career of fraud, I want to ask one or two more questions." He
+turned to Twiddel. "What were you to be paid for this?"
+
+"£500."
+
+Mr Bunker opened his eyes. "That's the way my money goes? From your
+anxiety to recapture me, I presume you have not yet been paid?"
+
+"No, I assure you, Mr Essington," said Twiddel, eagerly; "I give you my
+word."
+
+"I shall judge by the circumstances rather than your word, sir. It is
+perhaps unnecessary to inform you that you have had your trouble for
+nothing." He looked at them both as though they were curious animals, and
+then continued: "You, Mr Welsh, are a really wonderfully typical rascal. I
+am glad to have met you. You can now put on your coat and go." As Welsh
+still sat defiantly, he added, "_At once_, sir! or you may possibly find
+policemen and four-wheeled cabs outside. I have something else to say to
+Dr Twiddel."
+
+With the best air he could muster, Welsh silently cocked his hat on the
+side of his head, threw his coat over his arm, and was walking out, when a
+watchful waiter intercepted him.
+
+"Your bill, sare."
+
+"My friend is paying."
+
+"No, Mr Welsh," cried the real Essington; "I think you had better pay for
+this dinner yourself."
+
+Welsh saw the vigilant proprietor already coming towards him, and with a
+look that augured ill for Twiddel when they were alone, he put his hand in
+his pocket.
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Essington, "the inevitable bill!"
+
+"And now," he continued, turning to Twiddel, "you, doctor, seem to me a
+most unfortunately constructed biped; your nose is just long enough to
+enable you to be led into a singularly original adventure, and your brains
+just too few to carry it through creditably. Hang me if I wouldn't have
+made a better job of the business! But before you disappear from the
+company of gentlemen I must ask you to do one favour for me. First thing
+to-morrow morning you will go down to Clankwood, tell what lie you please,
+and obtain my legal discharge, or whatever it's called. After that you may
+go to the devil--or, what comes much to the same thing, to Mr Welsh--for all
+I care. You will do this without fail?"
+
+"Ye--es," stammered Twiddel, "certainly, sir."
+
+"You may now retire--and the faster the better."
+
+As the crestfallen doctor followed his ally out of the restaurant, the
+Baron exclaimed in disgust, "Ze cads! You are too merciful. You should
+punish."
+
+"My dear Baron, after all I am obliged to these rascals for the most
+amusing time I have ever had in my life, and one of the best friends I've
+ever made."
+
+"Ach, Bonker! Bot vat do I say? You are not Bonker no more, and yet may I
+call you so, jost for ze sake of pleasant times? It vill be too hard to
+change."
+
+"I'd rather you would, Baron. It will be a perpetual in memoriam record of
+my departed virtues."
+
+"Departed, Bonker?"
+
+"Departed, Baron," his friend repeated with a sigh; "for how can I ever
+hope to have so spacious a field for them again? Believe me, they will
+wither in an atmosphere of orthodoxy. And now let us order dinner."
+
+"But first," said the Baron, blushing, "I haf a piece of news."
+
+"Baron, I guess it!"
+
+"Ze Lady Alicia is now mine! Congratulate!"
+
+"With all my heart, Baron! What could be a fitter finish than the
+detection of villainy, the marriage of all the sane people, and the
+apotheosis of the lunatic?"
+
+
+
+                                 THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 ERRATA.
+
+
+      PART I.
+      CHAPTER IV.
+      Changed: he whistled, *The* sounds outside
+      To: he whistled, *the* sounds outside
+
+      PART I.
+      CHAPTER VI.
+      Changed: Ye*-*es.
+      To: Ye*--*es.
+
+      PART I.
+      CHAPTER VII.
+      Changed: which that *disapponted* official only
+      To: which that *disappointed* official only
+
+      PART III.
+      CHAPTER V.
+      Changed: something out*.*" he said
+      To: something out*,*" he said
+
+      PART IV.
+      CHAPTER I.
+      Changed: to me, *$*200 to you
+      To: to me, *£*200 to you
+
+      PART IV.
+      CHAPTER I.
+      Changed: _I_ let him loose?*'*
+      To: _I_ let him loose?*"*
+
+      PART IV.
+      CHAPTER II.
+      Changed: * *Indeed? Why not?"
+      To: *"*Indeed? Why not?"
+
+      PART IV.
+      CHAPTER III.
+      Changed: on his *wideawake* hat and
+      To: on his *wide-awake* hat and
+
+      PART IV.
+      CHAPTER III.
+      Changed: "What *nime*, sir?"
+      To: "What *name*, sir?"
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUNATIC AT LARGE***
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