iving you with so little ceremony. But
while we expected you, you on the other hand were not expecting us,
and we feared that you might hesitate to come in if the lamp was
burning when you opened the door."

Mitchelbourne was now entirely at his ease. He perceived that there
was some mistake and made haste to put it right.

"On the contrary," said he, "for I knew very well you were here.
Indeed, I knocked at the door to make a necessary inquiry. You did not
extinguish the lamp so quickly but that I saw the light beneath the
door, and besides I watched you some five minutes through the window
from the opposite bank of the pool at the back of the house."

The officers were plainly disconcerted by the affability of Mr.
Mitchelbourne's reply. They had evidently expected to carry off a
triumph, not to be taken up in an argument. They had planned a stroke
of the theatre, final and convincing, and behold the dialogue went on!
There was a riposte to their thrust.

The spokesman made some gruff noises in his throat. Then his face
cleared.

"These are dialectics," he said superbly with a wave of the hand.

"Good," said the little dark fellow at his elbow, "very good!"

The youth at the door nodded superciliously towards Mitchelbourne.

"True, these are dialectics," said he with a smack of the lips upon
the word. It was a good cunning scholarly word, and the man who could
produce it so aptly worthy of admiration.

"You make a further error, gentlemen," continued Mitchelbourne, "you
no doubt are expecting some one, but you were most certainly not
expecting me. For I am here by the purest mistake, having been
misdirected on the way." Here the three men smiled to each other, and
their spokesman retorted with a chuckle.

"Misdirected, indeed you were. We took precautions that you should be.
A servant of mine stationed at the parting of the roads. But we are
forgetting our manners," he added rising from his chair. "You should
know our names. The gentleman at the door is Cornet Lashley, this
is Captain Bassett and I am Major Chantrell. We are all three of
Trevelyan's regiment."

"And my name," said Mitchelbourne, not to be outdone in politeness,
"is Lewis Mitchelbourne, a gentleman of the County of Middlesex."

At this each of the officers was seized with a fit of laughter;
but before Mitchelbourne had time to resent their behavior, Major
Chantrell said indulgently:

"Well, well, we shall not quarrel about names. At all