burst!" added Ri
contemptuously. "Found you out there too!"

"Is that so!" exclaimed his father.

"That is so, sir!"

The three looked at him, and it was hard to say whether indignation or
contempt was more prominent in their faces. This was more than he could
endure.

"I vill not be so looked at!" he cried; "I vill leave you!"

"No you won't!" said Ri.

And the Baron saw his retreat cut of by the athletic and determined
young man.

"Before you leave, we have one or two questions to ask you," said Mr.
Maddison. "Are you Lord Tulliwuddle, or are you not?"

"Yes!--No!" replied the Baron.

"Which, sir?"

Expanding his chest, he made the awe-inspiring announcement--

"I am moch greater zan Tollyvoddle! I am ze Baron Rudolph von
Blitzenberg!"

"Another darned lie!" commented Ri.

Mr. Maddison laughed sardonically; while Eleanor, with flashing eyes,
now joined in the attack upon the hapless nobleman.

"You wretched creature! Isn't it enough to have shammed to be one peer
without shamming to be another?"

"Bot I am! Ja, I swear to you! Can you not see zat I am noble?"

"Curiously enough we can't," replied Mr. Maddison.

But his daughter's scepticism was a little shaken by the fervor of his
assurances.

"But, Poppa, perhaps he may be a German peer."

"German waiter, more likely!" sneered Ri. "What shall we do with him?
Tar and feathers, I guess, would just about suit his complaint."

"No, Ri, no," said his father cautiously. "Remember we are no longer
beneath the banner of freedom. In this benighted country it might lead
into trouble. Guess we can find him accommodation, though, in that
bit of genuine antique above the harness-room. It's fitted with a very
substantial lock. We'll make Dugald M'Culloch responsible for this BARON
till the police take him over."

Vain were the Baron's protests; and upon the appearance of Dugald
M'Culloch, fisherman and factotum to the millionaire, accompanied by
three burly satellites, vain, he perceived, would be the most desperate
resistance. He plead the privileges of a foreign diplomatist, threatened
a descent of the German army upon Lincoln Lodge, guaranteed an intimate
acquaintance with the American ambassador--"Who vill make you sorry for
zis!" but all without moving Mr. Maddison's resolution. Even Eleanor
whispered a word for him and was repulsed, for he overheard her father
replying to her--

"No, no, Eleanor; no more a diplomatist than you would have been L