r its power, prodigality and
prolificacy.

If Jones could have climbed up his own family tree he might have found
on some distaff branch the reason of his appalling likeness to
Rochester, Arthur Coningsby, Delamere, but this was a pure matter of
speculation, and it did not enter the mind of Jones.

He closed the book, returned it, and walked out.

Now that his resolve was made, his fighting spirit was roused. In other
words he felt the same recklessness that a man feels who is going into
battle, the regardlessness of consequence which marks your true
explorer. For Stanley on the frontier of Darkest Africa, Scott on the
ice rim of the Beardmore Glacier, had before them positions and
districts simple in comparison to those that now fronted Jones, who had
before him the Western and South Western London Districts, with all they
contained in the way of natives in top hats, natives painted and
powdered, tribes with tribal laws of which he knew little, tricks of
which he knew less, convenances, ju-pu's and fetishes. And he was
entering this dark and intricate and dangerous country, not as an
explorer carrying beads and bibles, but disguised as a top man, a chief.

Burton's position when he journeyed to Mecca disguised as a Mohammedan
was easy compared to the position of Jones. Burton knew the ritual. He
made one mistake in it it is true, but then he was able to kill the man
who saw him make that mistake. Jones could not protect himself in this
way, even if the valet in the sleeved jacket were to discover him in a
position analogous to Burton's.

He was not thinking of any of these things at the present moment,
however; he was thinking of luncheon. If he were condemned to play the
part of a Lord for awhile, he was quite determined to take his salary in
the way of everything he wanted. Yet it seemed that to obtain anything
he wanted in his new and extraordinary position, he would have to take
something he did not want. He wanted luncheon but he did not want to go
back to Carlton House Terrace, at least not just now. Those
flunkeys--the very thought of them gave him indigestion--more than that,
he was afraid of them. A fear that was neither physical nor moral, but
more in the nature of the fear of women for mice, or the supposed fear
of the late Lord Roberts for cats.

The solemn Church, the mercurial valet, the men with calves, belonged to
a tribe that maybe had done Jones to death in some past life: either
bored him to d