in it?"

"Simply, that if a man can't keep his saddle, he ought n't to try to
ride foremost; but these speculations will only puzzle you, my dear
Harcourt. What of Glencore? You said awhile ago that the town was
talking of him--how and wherefore was it?"

"Haven't you heard the story, then?"

"Not a word of it."

"Well, I'm a bad narrator; besides, I don't know where to begin; and
even if I did, I have nothing to tell but the odds and ends of club
gossip, for I conclude nobody knows all the facts but the King himself."

"If I were given to impatience, George, you would be a most consummate
plague to me," said Upton; "but I am not. Go on, however, in your own
blundering way, and leave me to glean what I can _in mine_."

Cheered and encouraged by this flattering speech, Harcourt did begin;
but, more courteous to him than Sir Horace, we mean to accord him a new
chapter for his revelations; premising the while to our reader that the
Colonel, like the knife-grinder, had really "no story to tell."

CHAPTER XXXIX. A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE

"You want to hear all about Glencore?" said Harcourt, as, seated in the
easiest of attitudes in an easy-chair, he puffed his cigar luxuriously;
"and when I have told you all I know, the chances are you'll be little
the wiser." Upton smiled a bland assent to this exordium, but in such a
way as to make Harcourt feel less at ease than before.

"I mean," said the Colonel, "that I have little to offer you beyond the
guesses and surmises of club talk. It will be for your own intelligence
to penetrate through the obscurity afterwards. You understand me?"

"I believe I understand you," said Upton, slowly, and with the same
quiet smile. Now, this cold, semi-sarcastic manner of Upton was the
one sole thing in the world which the honest Colonel could not stand
up against; he always felt as though it were the prelude to something
cutting or offensive,--some sly impertinence that he could not detect
till too late to resent,--some insinuation that might give the point
to a whole conversation, and yet be undiscovered by him till the day
following. Little as Harcourt was given to wronging his neighbor, he
in this instance was palpably unjust; Upton's manner being nothing more
than the impress made upon a very subtle man by qualities very unlike
any of his own, and which in their newness amused him. The very look of
satire was as often an expression of sorrow and regret that he could
not be as