'I asked you where he was.'

'He's at home with Violet.'

'Violet? Is that that young sister of his?'

'Young? She's old enough to be my promised wife.'

As I looked at him he eyed me with quite a disagreeable expression in his eyes. I whistled.

'Is that so? Indeed! I really think that I begin to see how extremely desirous it was that I should be dead. What a happy family you would have been! So sorry I'm alive. Dead men's shoes always are slow travellers. Thank you, Reggie. I shall perhaps see you again a little later on.'

I feel convinced he'd have liked to hit me as he went out. There's an utter lack in some people's bosoms of that true sympathy, the absence of which strikes a fatal blow at the very root of the family system.

It's a fact; I've noticed it before. Why, because your brother merely twists your nose off your face, should you resent it? It's that kind of feeling which tears an united family asunder.

I improved the occasion with Foster; filling him, I feel sure, with a profound conviction that there wasn't much difference between the Marquis of fifteen years ago and his lordship of to-day. I had to be him all the way along; and I was. When I'm playing a character I like to be thorough. When I'd been thorough enough I shunted Foster.

I felt a sort of desire to be alone. I'd been in some funny places, but this did seem as though it was going to be the funniest. It looked as if this was going to be the Julius Caesar kind of thing. As if there wasn't to be any opposition at all. I'd only had to hang up my hat in the hall to become king of the castle. When I'd wanted all that a chap had got I'd always been game to fight him; but I wasn't used to his handing it over to me, without so much, even, as a trifling argument, with a remark that it was mine. It looked as if I was in for a real good thing.

And yet--human nature's a freak; you never know where to cla.s.s it!--and yet, I wasn't sure that I felt so inclined to kick up my heels as I expected. The Marquis of Twickenham was an uncommonly fine person to be: for those who liked to be the Marquis of Twickenham. I hadn't been him much more than an hour, and already I was beginning to wonder if I did. There were houses and lands, and money at the bank, and servants to kick, and sacred duties to play old Harry with; but--well, I was starting to doubt if there was freedom. The kind of freedom I was used to, which has always been to me like the air I've breathed. On my davy, I didn't wonder that lying scoundrel made a bolt of it. A chap like that would have been clean wasted in Twickenham House. Maybe he wasn't all the fool I took him for.

One thing was sure, I was going to be as free as I could manage. What was the use of being lord of all if I wasn't above grammar? If there came over me an inclination to dine in my shirt sleeves he'd be a bold man who would try to stop me. And yet, as I went up again to that oak room, I was uncomfortably conscious that, after all, circ.u.mstances might prove too strong; and that underneath that roof I'd have to be decent. It wasn't an inspiriting kind of thought, and I plumped down into an armchair with the solemn conviction strong upon me that the first thing the Marquis of Twickenham had got was the hump.

I hadn't been there two minutes before old Gayer came in and wanted to know if he should valet me. Here was an occasion on which it was necessary to begin where I meant to go. The idea of having that old fossil messing about gave me the twitters. So I spoke to him like a father.

'Gayer, you're a man in the prime of life.'

I stopped, so as to give him his chance.

'I'm an old man now, my lord.'

'Oh, no, you're not; and I'll tell you how I know. If you'd seen one twenty-fifth part as much of the world as I have, you'd know at a glance that I am the kind of man who does everything for himself that can be done. It's because you're so young that you don't see it.'

'But your lordship will have a body servant?'

'What'll you bet on it? Come! I don't like the man who won't stand shoulder to shoulder with his own opinion; what are you laying?'

'Well, my lord, I'm not a betting man.'

'Sorry to hear it, Gayer--because I am. Lay my boots against yours on any little game you like. A man of your age ought not to have allowed the higher branches of a religious education to remain so neglected.

Good-bye. When I want you I'll ring; I suppose there are bells to be broken. And I don't want you, or any one, till I do ring. Hear, and then bear that carefully in mind.'

He'd hardly gone, with something about him which seemed to say he couldn't altogether make me out--I've noticed that look on people a good many times; I don't know how it gets there; I'm sure I'm simple to the breaking point--I say that dear old Mr. Gayer had hardly gone, when somebody started fumbling at the handle of the door, and presently open it came with a rush. When I saw that handle start jigging about I said to myself--

'Here's Gayer's venerable grandfather come to know if he can curl my hair. From the way he's playing upon that handle, I should say he'd got a touch of the shakes. I'll give him another touch before I've done with him.'

It struck me that the old-servant ticket was going to be run for all that it was worth. The sooner I buried the entire boiling, whether at Cressland or elsewhere, the more comfortable the Marquis would be.

This conviction had me at grips; and I was just about to give it due and proper expression, when who should come flying into the room but--Jimmy! My Jimmy!

I do believe that that was the first time in my life I was ever really taken by surprise. I'm not the sort of person that's easily amazed.

Always expecting the unexpected I get used to meeting it when it comes. But that time it had me fair. As we stared at each other I don't know which of the two was the more astonished. But he's a spry kid, is Jimmy. He knows his father when he sees him. And when he had got it clear that it was me, he came at me with a run.

'Dad!' he cried. 'Dad!'

Now I was in a quandary. I was getting into the region of the unusual.

I wanted to put my arms about that boy, lift him on to my knee, and say, 'Hollo, Jimmy!' But if I went on like that, the show'd be busted.

He'd go about telling people that I was his father. One of his father's two thousand and forty-five names was Montagu Babbacombe. I'd faced it out that I wasn't acquainted with any party of that name; supposing, when I said so, that I'd counted the cost. But this was an item which hadn't figured in the bill as I'd got it down at all. If I wasn't careful the Marquis would have to walk downstairs. So I kind of compromised.

'Little boy, whose little boy are you?'

'I'm your little boy--yours! yours! yours!'

He put his hands on my knees, and began to caper about as if he was happy. Now I'd been in the habit of playing with that small child a kind of a game in which I'd ask him whose little boy he was, pretending I didn't know; and he'd say, 'Yours! yours! yours!' He thought I was playing that game with him then. Which was where he was wrong.

'You take a good deal for granted, young gentleman.'

'I don't! I don't! I don't!'

He flung himself against me, still thinking I was playing the game.

'I say you do. May I ask how you've come here!'

'I came with Pollie.' Before I could stop him or guessed what he was going to do, he was off to the door, which he had left wide open, and had started to bawl,' Pollie! Pollie! Here's dad! Here's dad!'

Children have a pleasant habit of bawling. But I don't think I was ever so struck by it as I was then. I was after him like a shot.

'Here, I say. You mustn't make that noise!'

I might as well have talked to the wall. When he'd got a thing to mention he was bound to mention it--at the top of his voice.

'I'm playing hide-and-seek with Pollie, and she won't know where I am.

Pollie! Pollie! Here's dad!'

I had to throw him up in the air before he'd stop. By then it was too late. Tearing down the stairs came Pollie, my heart in my mouth for fear she'd tumble, and if I'd shut the door in her face she'd have dashed herself against it. I had to let her in, and shut the door behind her when she was in, and hope that there was n.o.body about with long ears and sharp wits.

'Allow me to ask what you young persons mean by behaving in this extraordinary manner; for whom do you take me?'

'You're dad! dad! dad!'

There they were, bouncing about me like two indiarubber b.a.l.l.s. They still thought I was playing the game. The worst of it was, I almost felt as if I was, myself. I could hardly keep my countenance, in spite of the stake which was dependent on it.

'Pray may I inquire why you call me dad?'

'Tause you are!' cried Pollie. 'Give me a tiss!'

I picked up the small bundle of girl and kissed her; till her laughter might have been heard on the other side of the square. While I was still engaged in this operation the door was opened again. When I turned to see who might be this fresh disturber of my privacy, there was Mary.

Then I knew the fat was in the fire. This was quite a different kettle of fish. Playing the fool with those two children was one thing.

Admitting myself to be Mr. James Merrett, after my repudiation of Mr.