ed on couches, and discoursing of my father's
reintroduction of the sedan chair to society. My father explained that he
had ordered a couple of dozen of these chairs to be built on a pattern of
his own. And he added, 'By the way, Richie, there will be
sedaniers--porters to pay to-day. Poor men should be paid immediately.' I
agreed with the monarch. Contemplating him, I became insensible to the
sting of ridicule which had been shooting through me, agonizing me for
the last eight-and-forty hours. Still I thought: can I never escape from
the fascination?--let me only get into Parliament! The idea in me was
that Parliament lifted me nearer to Ottilia, and would prompt me to
resolute action, out of his tangle of glittering cobwebs. I told him of
my interview with Beauchamp Hill. 'I have never known Kesensky wrong
yet,' said he; 'except in his backing of Falmouth's horses.' Count Lika
murmured that he hoped his Chief would be wrong in something else: he
spoke significantly. My father raised his eyebrows. 'In his opinion,'
Lika accepted the invitation to pursue, 'Prince Ernest will not let that
announcement stand uncontradicted.'

My father's eyes dwelt on him. 'Are we accused of it?'

Lika slipped from the question. 'Who is accused of a newspaper's doings?
It is but the denial of a statement.'

'I dare them to deny it!--and, Lika, my dear fellow, light me a
cigarette,' said my father.

'Then,' said Lika, touching the flame delicately, 'you take the view that
Kesensky is wrong in another thing besides horses.'

I believe he struck on the subject casually: there was nothing for him to
gain or lose in it; and he had a liking for my father.

After puffing the cigarette twice or thrice my father threw it down,
resuming his conversation upon the sedan, the appropriate dresses of
certain of the great masquerading ladies, and an incident that appeared
to charge Jorian DeWitt with having misconducted himself. The moment Lika
had gone upstairs for two or three hours' sleep, he said to me: 'Richie,
you and I have no time for that. We must have a man at Falmouth's house
by eight o'clock. If the scrubbing-maid on all fours-not an inelegant
position, I have remarked--declares him dead, we are at Bartlett's
(money-lender) by ten: and in Chippenden borough before two post
meridian. As I am a tactician, there is mischief! but I will turn it to
my uses, as I did our poor Jorian to-night; he smuggled in the
Chassediane: I led her out on m