eets the shock of the world's buffets.
I called him by name and asked him his desires.

It appeared that he took me for a Jacobite, for he began a rigmarole
about loyalty and hard fortune. I hastened to correct him, and he took
the correction with the same patient despair with which he took all
things. 'Twas but another of the blows of Fate.

"At any rate," he said in a broad Scotch accent, "ye come of kin that
has helpit my maister afore this. I've many times heard tell o'
Herveys and Townshends in England, and a' folk said they were on the
richt side. Ye're maybe no a freend, but ye're a freend's freend, or I
wadna be speirin' at ye."

I was amused at the prologue, and waited on the tale. It soon came.
Oliphant, it appeared, was the purse-bearer of the household, and
woeful straits that poor purse-bearer must have been often put to. I
questioned him as to his master's revenues, but could get no clear
answer. There were payments due next month in Florence which would
solve the difficulties for the winter, but in the meantime expenditure
had beaten income. Travelling had cost much, and the Count must have
his small comforts. The result in plain words was that Oliphant had
not the wherewithal to frank the company to Florence; indeed, I doubted
if he could have paid the reckoning in Santa Chiara. A loan was
therefore sought from a friend's friend, meaning myself.

I was very really embarrassed. Not that I would not have given
willingly, for I had ample resources at the moment and was mightily
concerned about the sad household. But I knew that the little Duchess
would take Oliphant's ears from his head if she guessed that he had
dared to borrow from me, and that, if I lent, her back would for ever
be turned against me. And yet, what would follow on my refusal? In a
day of two there would be a pitiful scene with mine host, and as like
as not some of their baggage detained as security for payment. I did
not love the task of conspiring behind the lady's back, but if it could
be contrived 'twas indubitably the kindest course. I glared sternly at
Oliphant, who met me with his pathetic, dog-like eyes.

"You know that your mistress would never consent to the request you
have made of me?"

"I ken," he said humbly. "But payin' is my job, and I simply havena
the siller. It's no the first time it has happened, and it's a sair
trial for them both to be flung out o' doors by a foreign hostler
because they canna m