hen he gazed on the
Hungarian's damaged organ.

"Lord love a duck, you've had it handed to you all right," he gasped.
"How did you get it? Did you foul a lamp-post, or bump a rock, or
what?"

"It is edough that I have met with ad accided," snarled the Count.
"Cad't you see that I wadt some water? Is there do place where I cad
wash?"

"What you reelly want is a tap," said Jenkins sympathetically. "An' I
shouldn't be surprised if a slab of raw beefsteak across yer lamps
wouldn't be a bully good notion, too, or you'll have a lovely pair of
mice in the morning."

Then, hearing Mr. Hughes's voice from the library, he suddenly
recollected the habits of later years.

"Come with me, sir," he said, leading the way to the basement. "I'll
do my best for you."

Perhaps it was fortunate for the success of his mission that the Earl
of Valletort was left free to deal with the clergyman. The Count's
hectoring methods would certainly have stiffened the worthy old
gentleman's back, whereas he yielded readily to the Earl's skillful
handling. He was much pained at hearing that a peer's daughter should
have fallen into the hands of an adventurer.

"Dear me! Dear me!" he wheezed. "This is very sad. The man looked
quite a gentleman, I assure you. And he had not the least semblance to
a foreigner. His name, too--John D. Curtis--is your lordship really
certain of the facts?"

Now, "John" and "Jean" are sufficiently alike in sound to pass muster
with the average man, who also connotes no difference between "D" and
"de," but the Earl was moved to say quickly:

"Perhaps you are not accustomed to French names, Mr. Hughes?"

"No, I admit it. But, here is an unimpeachable witness," and the
minister produced the license from a drawer in the writing-desk.

Lord Valletort glanced at it, and a peculiarly unpleasant scowl
convulsed his aristocratic features. Hitherto, a stranger might have
believed that Hermione's unfavorable picture of her father had been
tinged by a high-spirited girl's hatred of the marriage which he was
forcing upon her; but that fleeting expression spoke volumes. If Count
Vassilan was of the bovine order, the Earl of Valletort savored of the
tiger.

He contrived to smile, however, and the effort to figure wholly as a
disconsolate parent cost him far more than he dreamed, since he
examined neither the actual certificate nor the register, though both
would have been submitted to his scrutiny by the bewild