ever be stopped, Richie. Our Jorian compares them
to babies baptized. They have a soul from that moment, and go on for
ever!--an admirable word of Jorian's. And a word to you, Richie. Will
you swear to me by the veracity of your lover's heart, that paragraph
affords you no satisfaction? He cannot swear it!' my father exclaimed,
seeing me swing my shoulder round, and he made me feel that it would
have been a false oath if I had sworn it. But I could have sworn, that I
had rather we two were at the bottom of the sea than that it should come
under the princess's eyes. I read it again. It was in print. It looked
like reality. It was at least the realization of my dream. But this
played traitor and accused me of being crowned with no more than a
dream. The sole practical thing I could do was to insist on our starting
for Riversley immediately, to make sure of my own position. 'Name your
hour, Richie,' my father said confidently: and we waited.

A rather plainer view of my father's position, as I inclined to think,
was afforded to me one morning at his breakfast-table, by a conversation
between him and Jorian DeWitt, who brought me a twisted pink note from
Mdlle. Chassediane, the which he delivered with the air of a dog made
to disgorge a bone, and he was very cool to me indeed. The cutlets of
Alphonse were subject to snappish criticism. 'I assume,' he said, 'the
fellow knew I was coming?'

'He saw it in my handwriting of yesterday,' replied my father. 'But be
just to him, acknowledge that he is one of the few that perform their
daily duties with a tender conscience.'

'This English climate has bedevilled the fellow! He peppers his dishes
like a mongrel Indian reared on mangoes.'

'Ring him up, ring him up, Jorian. All I beg of you is not to disgust
him with life, for he quits any service in the world to come to me, and,
in fact, he suits me.'

'Exactly so: you spoil him.'

My father shrugged. 'The state of the case is, that your stomach is
growing delicate, friend Jorian.'

'The actual state of the case being, that my palate was never keener,
and consequently my stomach knows its business.'

'You should have tried the cold turbot with oil and capers.'

'Your man had better stick to buttered eggs, in my opinion.'

'Say, porridge!'

'No, I'll be hanged if I think he's equal to a bowl of porridge.'

'Careme might have confessed to the same!'

'With this difference,' cried Jorian in a heat, 'that he would never
h