r zat takes tree men----"

"Hush!" whispered the Count. "They are only holding it down!"

The Baron laid his hand upon the round enormous head, and started.

"It is not iron!" he gasped. "It is of rubber."

"Filled with hydrogen," breathed the Count in his ear. "Just swing it
once and let go--and, I say, mind it doesn't carry you away with it."

The chief bared his arms and seized the handle; his three clansmen let
go; and then, with what seemed to the breathless spectators to be a
merely trifling effort of strength, he dismissed the projectile upon
the most astounding journey ever seen even in that land of brawny
hammer-hurlers. Up, up, up it soared, over the trees; high above the
topmost turret of the castle, and still on and on and ever upwards till
it became a mere speck in the zenith, and at last faded utterly from
sight.

Then, and not till then, did the pent-up applause break out into such
a roar of cheering as Hechnahoul had never heard before in all its long
history.

"Eighty-five pounds of pig-iron gone straight to heaven!" gasped the
Silver King. "Guess that beats all records!"

"America must wake up!" frowned Ri.

Meanwhile the Baron, after bowing in turn towards all points of the
compass, turned confidentially to his friend.

"Vill not ze men that carried it----?"

"I've told 'em you'd give 'em a couple of sovereigns apiece."

The Baron came from an economical nation.

"Two to each!"

"My dear fellow, wasn't it worth it?"

The Baron grasped his hand.

"Ja, mine Bonker, it vas! I vill pay zem."

Radiant and smiling, he returned to receive the congratulations of his
guests, dreaming that his triumph was complete, and that nothing more
arduous remained than pleasant dalliance alternately with his Eleanor
and his Eva. But he speedily discovered that hurling an inflated
hammer heavenwards was child's play as compared with the simultaneous
negotiation of a double wooing. The first person to address him was the
millionaire, and he could not but feel a shiver of apprehension to note
that he was evidently in the midst of a conversation with Mr. Gallosh.

"I must congratulate you, Lord Tulliwuddle," said Mr. Maddison, "and I
must further congratulate my daughter upon the almost miraculous feat
you have performed for her benefit. You know, I dare say"--here he
turned to Mr. Gallosh--"that this very delightful entertainment was
given primarily in my Eleanor's honor?"

"Whut!" exclaimed the merch