peers who had been there
at the opening of the sitting knew nothing of what had occurred, while
those who had not been there knew all about it. Several lords had come
from Windsor.

For some hours past the adventures of Gwynplaine had been the subject of
conversation. A secret is a net; let one mesh drop, and the whole goes
to pieces. In the morning, in consequence of the incidents related
above, the whole story of a peer found on the stage, and of a mountebank
become a lord, had burst forth at Windsor in Royal places. The princes
had talked about it, and then the lackeys. From the Court the news soon
reached the town. Events have a weight, and the mathematical rule of
velocity, increasing in proportion to the squares of the distance,
applies to them. They fall upon the public, and work themselves through
it with the most astounding rapidity. At seven o'clock no one in London
had caught wind of the story; by eight Gwynplaine was the talk of the
town. Only the lords who had been so punctual that they were present
before the assembling of the House were ignorant of the circumstances,
not having been in the town when the matter was talked of by every one,
and having been in the House, where nothing had been perceived. Seated
quietly on their benches, they were addressed by the eager newcomers.

"Well!" said Francis Brown, Viscount Montacute, to the Marquis of
Dorchester.

"What?"

"Is it possible?"

"What?"

"The Laughing Man!"

"Who is the Laughing Man?"

"Don't you know the Laughing Man?"

"No."

"He is a clown, a fellow performing at fairs. He has an extraordinary
face, which people gave a penny to look at. A mountebank."

"Well, what then?"

"You have just installed him as a peer of England."

"You are the laughing man, my Lord Montacute!"

"I am not laughing, my Lord Dorchester."

Lord Montacute made a sign to the Clerk of the Parliament, who rose from
his woolsack, and confirmed to their lordships the fact of the admission
of the new peer. Besides, he detailed the circumstances.

"How wonderful!" said Lord Dorchester. "I was talking to the Bishop of
Ely all the while."

The young Earl of Annesley addressed old Lord Eure, who had but two
years more to live, as he died in 1707.

"My Lord Eure."

"My Lord Annesley."

"Did you know Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie?"

"A man of bygone days. Yes I did."

"He died in Switzerland?"

"Yes; we were relations."

"He was a republican under Cromwell,