ish blood was up. The extraction from the
sunny South boiled in my veins ... boiled over, when I learnt, on
referring to the visitors' list, that Penelope Anne was the relict of
the short-breath'd--I mean short-lived but virtuous--Knox, who had left
her his entire fortune. All my long-stifled passion returned--the
passion which the existence of a Wiggins, her first, had not quenched,
which the ephemeral life of a Knox had not extinguished, a passion which
I have felt for her before I knew that the blue ink--I mean the blue
blood, of the Hidalgos danced in my veins, and while she was only a
sweet village maiden eighteen years old, and known to all as Miss
Penelope Anne, of Park Place, Pimlico! I determined to go out and throw
myself at her feet, declare my passion, and take nothing for an answer
except "Box ... John ... I'm yours truly, Penelope!" I couldn't present
myself before her with a scrubbing-brush on my upper lip. So that
afternoon I sacrificed Mars to Venus--I mean I shaved off my moustache
for the sake of Penelope Anne. The next morning .... Toothache wasn't
the name for what I suffered. Face-ache fails to describe my agonies.
Neuralgia doesn't give the faintest idea of my tortures. The left side
of my face looked exactly as if I was holding a large dumpling in my
mouth, or a gigantic ribston-pippin which I couldn't swallow. Swallow!
Not a bit of food passed these lips, except slops, beef-tea, and tea
without the beef, for days. At the end of a week I was a shadow.
Penelope Anne had gone. Where, no one knew. Somebody said they thought
it was the Continent. I bought a map and looked out the Continent, but
it wasn't in that. I suppose it was an old edition--there have been so
many changes, and they're building everywhere--so I consulted my medical
man and my legal adviser. The first said, "Get change of air. Go
abroad!" The second said, "Seize the opportunity and go to Spain. And,"
he added, "come home by the Continent." That suited me down to the
ground. I should get my title, my lands, and my money, meeting Penelope
Anne on the Continent. As I was coming back I should be able to offer
her the hand and heart of either Don Jose John de Boxos y Cazadores y
Regalias y Caballeros y Carvalhos of Salamanca, Spain, or of plain John
Box, of Barnsbury. So here I am. I haven't got the whole title yet, as
the Spanish legal gentleman and I didn't hit it off exactly.... If I'd
only known what he was talking about, it would ha