and circumspection, advanced the pawns,
guarded the king, and made ready for the final checkmate. Yet a
woman's caprice overturned the board, scattered our puppets far and
wide, and by the tyranny of an accident recast our game on other lines,
without rule or rhyme or reason.

CHAPTER IX

MADEMOISELLE

In the morning of the following day we were engaged about a business
which troubled me no little. Had it not been for Jerome I fear I had
never come through it at all with credit.

First, we repaired to another house which Jerome possessed in a more
fashionable quarter, and thither by his directions came a fawning swarm
of tailors, boot-makers, barbers, wig-makers; vendors of silken hose
and men with laces, jaunty caps, perfumes--it was a huge task, this
making a gentlemen of me--as Jerome phrased it.

I worried over it grievously in the beginning, but at length sullenly
delivered myself into his hands, murmuring an abject prayer for the
salvation of my soul. That, at least, was not to be remodeled by all
their fashionable garniture. These heated discussions concerning what
I was to wear were not for me to put a voice in. Verily, I knew
nothing and cared naught for the cut of a shoe my Lord of Orleans had
made the style, nor did it matter whether my coat was slashed with
crimson or braided with golden furbelows. Like some wretch a-quivering
of the palsy I heard the learned doctors wrangling over my medicine,
which they must needs hold my nose to make me swallow. For all their
biases and twistings I knew full well they could carve no sprig of
fashion from so rough a block as I. Certes, I must now have a squire
to fasten this new harness well upon me, for by my word, I knew not one
garment from the other by sight of it. Jerome went off into fits of
laughter seeing me trying to struggle into things I could not even
guess the use of.

When the worst was over, late in the afternoon, I felt like a
play-actor, dressed for his part, but who, for the life of him, could
not recall one syllable of his speech, nor breathe because of his wig.
Jerome surveyed me with a half-critical, half-approving scrutiny, until
I essayed to buckle on my sword.

"By my lady, fine sir, that dingy old cutlass will never do for a
drawing-room. As well a miller's dusty cap to cover those glorious
borrowed curls of thine; we must get thee one shaped in the mode."
This quip exterminated my patience.

"To the foul fiend with all t