[pg 65]PART II.CHAPTER I.The Baron Rudolf von Blitzenberg sat by himself at a table in the dining-room of the Hôtel Mayonaise, which, as everybody knows, is the largest and most expensive in London. He was a young man of a florid and burly Teutonic type and the most ingenuous countenance. Being possessed of a curious and enterprising disposition, as well as the most ample means, he had left his ancestral castle in Bavaria to study for a few months the customs and politics of England. In the language he was already proficient, and he had promised himself an amusing as well as an instructive visit. But, although he had only arrived in London that morning, he was already beginning to feel an uncomfortable apprehension lest in both respects he should be disappointed. Though his introductions were the best with which the British Ambassador could supply him, they were only three or four in number,—for, not wishing to be hampered with too many acquaintances, he had rather chosen quality than quantity: and now, in the course of the afternoon, he had found to his chagrin that in every case the families were out of town. In fact, so far as he could learn, they were[pg 66]not even at their own country seats. One was abroad, another gone to the seaside to recover from the mumps, or a third paying a round of visits.The disappointment was sharp, he felt utterly at sea as to what he should do, and he was already beginning to experience the loneliness of a single mortal in a crowded hotel.As the frosty evening was setting in and the shops were being lit, he had strolled out into the streets in the vague hope of meeting some strange foreign adventure, or perhaps even happily lighting upon some half-forgotten diplomatic acquaintance. But he found the pavements crowded with a throng who took no notice of him at all, but seemed every man and most women of them to be pushing steadily, and generally silently, towards a million mysterious goals. Not that he could tell they were silent except by their set lips, for the noise of wheels and horses on so many hundreds of miles of streets, and the cries of busmen and vendors of evening papers, made such a hubbub that he felt before long in a maze. He lost his way four times, and was patronisingly set right by beneficent policemen; and at last, feeling like a man who has fallen off a precipice on to a soft place—none the worse but quite bewildered—he struggled back to his hotel. There he spun out his time by watching the people come and go, and at last dressed with extra deliberation.About eight o’clock he sat down to his solitary dinner. The great gilt and panelled room was full of diners and bustling waiters, but there was not a face the Baron had ever seen before. He was just finishing a plate of whitebait[pg 67]when he observed a stranger enter the room and stroll in a very self-possessed manner down the middle, glancing at the tables round him as though he was looking either for a friend or a desirable seat. This gentleman was tall, fair, and clean-shaved; he was dressed in a suit of well-fitting tweeds, and his air impressed the Baron as being natural and yet distinguished. At last his eye fell upon the Baron, who felt conscious of undergoing a quick, critical scrutiny. The table at which that nobleman sat was laid for two, and coming apparently to a sudden resolution, the good-looking stranger seated himself in the vacant chair. In an agreeable voice and with an unmistakably well-bred air he asked a waiter for the wine-list, and then, like a man with an excellent appetite, fell to upon the varioushors d’œuvres, the entire collection of which, in fact, he consumed in a wonderfully short space of time. The Baron, being himself no trifler with his victuals, regarded this feat with sympathetic approval, and began to feel a little less alone in the world. His naturally open disposition was warmed besides, owing to a slight misconception he had fallen into, perfectly excusable however in a foreigner. He thought he had read somewhere that port was the usual accompaniment to the first courses of an English dinner, and as his waiter had been somewhat dilatory in bringing him the more substantial items of the repast, he had already drunk three claret-glasses of this cheering wine. The chill recollections of his sixteen quarterings and the exclusiveness he had determined to maintain as becoming to his rank were already melting, and he met the stranger’s[pg 68]eye with what for the life of him he could not help being a cordial look.Hisvis-à-viscaught the glance, smiled back, and immediately asked, with the most charming politeness,“Do you care, sir, to split a bottle of champagne?”“To—er—shplid?”said the Baron, with a disappointed consciousness of having been put at a loss in his English by the very first man who had spoken to him.“I beg your pardon,—I am afraid I was unintelligibly idiomatic. To divide, I should say, you consuming one-half, I the other. Am I clear, sir?”For a moment the Baron was a little taken aback, and then recollecting that the dining habits of the English were still new to him, he concluded that the suggestion was probably a customary act of courtesy. He had already come to the conclusion that the gentleman must be a person of rank, and he replied affably,“Yah—zat is, vid pleasure. Zanks, very.”“The pleasure is mine,”said the stranger—“and half the bottle,”he added, smiling.The Baron, whose perception of humour had been abnormally increased by this time, laughed hilariously at the infection of his new acquaintance’s smile.“Goot, goot!”he cried.“Ach, yah, zo.”“Am I right, sir, in supposing that, despite the perfection of your English accent, I cannot be fortunate enough to claim you as a countryman?”asked the stranger.The Baron’s resolutions of reticence had vanished altogether before such unexpected and (he could not[pg 69]but think) un-English friendliness. He unburdened his heart with a rush.“You have ze right. I am Deutsch. I have gom to England zis day for to lairn and to amuse myself. But mein, vat you call?—introdogtions zey are not inside, zat is zey are from off. Not von, all, every single gone to ze gontry or to abroad. I am alone, I eat my dinner in zolitude, I am pleased to meet you, sare.”A cork popped and the champagne frothed into the stranger’s glass. Raising it to his lips, he said,“Prosit!”“Prosit!”responded the Baron, enthusiastically.“You know ze Deutsch, sare?”“I am safer in English, I confess.”“Ach, das ist goot, I vant for to practeese. Ve vill talk English.”“With all my heart,”said the stranger.“I, too, am alone, and I hold myself more than fortunate in making your acquaintance. It’s a devilish dull world when one can’t share a bottle—or a brace of them, for the matter of that.”“You know London?”asked the Baron.“I used to, and I daresay my memory will revive.”“I know it not, pairhaps you can inform. I haf gom, as I say, to-day.”“With pleasure,”said the stranger, readily.“In fact, if you are ever disengaged I may possibly be able to act as showman.”“Showman!”roared the Baron, thinking he had discovered a jest.“Ha, ha, ha! Goot, zehr goot!”The other looked a trifle astonished for an instant,[pg 70]and then as he sipped his champagne an expression of intense satisfaction came over his face.“I can put away my lantern,”he said to himself,—“I have found him.”“May I have the boldness to ask your name, sir?”he asked aloud.“Ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”that nobleman replied.“Yours, sare—may I dare?”“Francis Bunker, at your service, Baron.”“You are noble?”queried the Baron a little anxiously, for his prejudices on this point were strong.“According to your standard I believe I may say so. That’s to say, my family have borne arms for two hundred odd generations; twenty-five per cent of them have died of good living; and the most malicious have never accused us of brains. I myself may not be very typical, but I assure you it isn’t my ancestors’ fault.”The latter part of this explanation entirely puzzled the Baron. The first statement, though eminently satisfactory, was also a little bewildering.“Two hondred generations?”he asked, courteously.“Zat is a vary old family. All bore arms you say, Mistair Bonker?”“All,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely.“The first few bore tails as well.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“You are a fonny man I pairceive, vat you call clown, yes?”“What my friends call clown, and I call wit,”Mr Bunker corrected.“Vit! Ha, ha, ha!”roared the Baron, whose mind[pg 71]was now in an El Dorado of humour when jokes grew like daisies. His loneliness had disappeared as if by magic; as course succeeded course his contentment showed itself in a perpetually beaming smile: he ceased to worry even about his friend’s pedigree, convinced in his mind that manners so delightful and distinguished could only result from repeated quarterings and unoccupied forefathers. Yet by the time dessert arrived and he had again returned to his port, he began to feel an extreme curiosity to know more concerning Mr Bunker. He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive. Mr Bunker, for his part, had so far confined his confidences to his name.“My dear Bonker,”said the Baron at last—he had become quite familiar by this time—“vat make you in London? I fear you are bird of passage. Do you stay long?”Mr Bunker cracked a nut, looking very serious; then he leant on one elbow, glanced up at the ceiling pensively, and sighed.“I hope I do not ask vat I should not,”the Baron interposed, courteously.“My dear Baron, ask what you like,”replied Mr Bunker.“In a city full of strangers, or of friends who[pg 72]have forgotten me, you alone have my confidence. My story is a common one of youthful folly and present repentance, but such as it is, you are welcome to it.”The Baron gulped down half a glass of port and leaned forward sympathetically.“My father,”Mr Bunker continued with an air of half-sad reminiscence,“is one of the largest landowners and the head of one of the most ancient families in the north of England. I was his eldest son and heir. I am still, I have every reason to believe, his eldest son, but my heirship, I regret to say, is more doubtful. I spent a prodigal youth and a larger sum of money than my poor father approved of. He was a strict though a kind parent, and for the good of my health and the replenishment of the family coffers, which had been sadly drained by my extravagance, he sent me abroad. There I have led a roving life for the last six years, and at last, my wild oats sown, reaped, and gathered in (and a well-filled stackyard they made, I can assure you), I decided to return to England and become an ornament to respectable society. Like you, I arrived in London to-day, but only to find to my disgust that my family have gone to winter in Egypt. So you see that at present I am like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock and waiting, with what patience I can muster, for a boat to take me off.”“You mean,”inquired the Baron, anxiously,“that you vish to go to Egypt at vonce?”“I had thought of it; though there is a difficulty in the way, I admit.”“You vill not stay zen here?”[pg 73]“My dear Baron, why should I? I have neither friends nor——”He stopped abruptly.“I do not like to zink I shall lose your company so soon.”“I admit,”allowed Mr Bunker,“that this fortunate meeting tempts me to stay.”“Vy not?”said the Baron, cordially.“Can your fader not vait to see you?”“I hardly think he will worry about me, I confess.”“Zen stay, my goot Bonker!”“Unfortunately there is the same difficulty as stands in the way of my going to Egypt.”“And may I inquire vat zat is?”“To tell you the truth,”replied Mr Bunker, with an air of reluctant candour,“my funds are rather low. I had trusted to finding my father at home, but as he isn’t, why——”he shrugged his shoulders and threw himself back in his chair.The Baron seemed struck with an idea which he hesitated to express.“Shall we smoke?”his friend suggested.“Vaiter!”cried the Baron,“bring here two best cigars and two coffee!”“A liqueur, Baron?”“Ach, yah. Vat for you?”“A liqueur brandy suggests itself.”“Vaiter! and two brandy.”“And now,”said the Baron,“I haf an idea, Bonker.”[pg 74]CHAPTER II.The Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, as I have said, had a warm heart. He was, besides, alone in one hundred and twenty square miles of strangers and foreigners when he had happened upon this congenial spirit. He began in a tone of the most ingenuous friendliness—“I haf no friends here. My introdogtions zey are gone. Bot I haf moch money, and I vish a, vat you say?—showman, ha, ha, ha! You haf too leetle money and no friends and you can show. You show and I will loan you vat you vish. May I dare to suggest?”“My dear Baron!”“My goot Bonker! I am in airnest, I assure. Vy not? It is vun gentleman and anozzer.”“You are far too kind.”“It is to myself I am kind, zen. I vant a guide, a frient. It is a loan. Do not scruple. Ven your fader goms you can pay if you please. It is nozing to me.”“Well, my dear Baron,”said Mr Bunker, like a man persuaded against his will,“what can I say? I confess I might find a little difficulty in replenishing my purse without resorting to disagreeable means, and if you really wish my society, why——”“Zen it is a bairgain?”cried the Baron.“If you insist——”“I insist. Vaiter! Alzo two ozzer liqueur. Ve most drink to ze bairgain, Bonker.”They pledged each other cordially, and talked from[pg 75]that moment like old friends. The Baron was thoroughly pleased with himself, and Mr Bunker seemed no less gratified at his own good fortune. Half an hour went quickly by, and then the Baron exclaimed,“Let us do zomzing to-night, Bonker. I burn for to begin zis show of London.”“What would you care to do, Baron? It is rather late, I am afraid, to think of a theatre. What do you say to a music-hall?”“Music-hall? I haf seen zem at home. Damned amusing, das ist ze expression, yes?”“It is a perfect description.”“Bot,”continued the Baron, solemnly,“I must not begin vid ze vickedest.”“And yet,”replied his friend, persuasively,“even wickedness needs a beginning.”“Bot, if I begin I may not stop. Zomzing more qviet ze first night. Haf you a club?”Mr Bunker pondered for a moment, and a curious smile stole across his face. Then it vanished, and he answered readily,“Certainly, Baron, an excellent idea. I haven’t been to my club for so long that it never struck me. Let us come.”“Goot!”cried the Baron, rising with alacrity.They put on their coats (Mr Bunker’s, it may be remarked, being a handsome fur-lined garment), the porter hailed a cab, and the driver was ordered to take them to the Regent’s Club in Pall Mall. The Baron knew it by reputation as the most exclusive in London, and his opinion of his friend rose still higher.[pg 76]They joined a jingling string of other hansoms and sped swiftly through the exhilarating bustle of the streets. To the Baron it seemed as if a great change had come over the city since he wandered disconsolately before dinner. Carried swiftly to the music of the little bells through the sharp air and the London night that is brighter than day, with a friend by his side and a good dinner within, he marked the most astonishing difference. All the people seemed to talk and laugh, and for his own part he found it hard to keep his tongue still.“I know ze name of ze Regent’s,”he said;“vun club of ze best, is it not?”“The very best club, Baron.”“Zey are all noble?”“In many cases the receipts for their escutcheons are still in their pockets.”Though the precise significance of this explanation was not quite clear to the Baron, it sounded eminently satisfactory.“Zo?”he said.“I shall be moch interested to see zem.”As they entered the club the porter stared at them curiously, and even made a movement as though he would step out and address them; but Mr Bunker, wishing him a courteous good evening, walked briskly up to the hat-and-cloak racks in the hall. A young man had just hung up his hat, and as he was divesting himself of his coat, Mr Bunker quickly took the hat down, glanced at the name inside, and replaced it on its peg. Then he held out his hand and addressed the young man cordially.[pg 77]“Good evening, Transome, how are you?”said he, and, heedless of the look of surprise on the other’s face, he turned towards the Baron and added,“Let me introduce the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg—Mr Transome. The Baron has just come to England, and I thought he couldn’t begin better than by a visit to the Regent’s. Let us come into the smoking-room.”In a few minutes they were all on the best of terms. A certain perplexity, and almost shyness, that the young man showed at first, vanished rapidly before the Baron’s cordiality and Mr Bunker’s well-bred charm of manner.They were deeply engrossed in a discussion on the reigning sovereign of the Baron’s native land, a monarch of whose enlightened policy that nobleman spoke with pardonable pride, when two elderly gentlemen entered the room.“Who are these?”Mr Bunker whispered to Transome.“I know them very well, but I am always bad at names.”“Lord Fabrigas and General M’Dermott,”replied Transome.Instantly Mr Bunker rose and greeted the new-comers.“Good evening, Lord Fabrigas; good evening, General. You have just come in time to be introduced to the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, whom you doubtless know by reputation.”The Baron rose and bowed, and it struck him that elderly English gentlemen were singularly stiff and constrained in their manner. Mr Bunker, however, continued cheerfully,“We are just going to have a smoking concert. Will you begin, Baron?”[pg 78]“I know not English songs,”replied the Baron,“bot I should like moch to hear.”“You must join in the chorus, then.”“Certainly, Bonker. I haf a voice zat is considered—vat you call—deafening, yes?—in ze chorus.”Mr Bunker cleared his throat, and, just as the General was on the point of interposing a remark, struck up hastily; and for the first time in its long and honourable history the smoking-room of the Regent’s Club reechoed to a popular music-hall ditty.“They sometimes call ’em duckies, they sometimes call ’em pets,And sometimes they refer to ’em as dearsThey live on little matters that a gentleman forgets,In a little world of giggles and of tears;There are different varieties from which a man may choose,There are sorts and shapes and sizes without end,But the kind I’d pick myself is the kind you introduceBy the simple title of‘my lady friend.’”“Chorus, Baron!”And then he trolled in waltz time this edifying refrain—“My lady friend, my lady friend!Can’t you twig, dear boys,From the sound of the kissesShe isn’t my misses,She’s only my lady friend!”In a voice like a train going over a bridge the Baron chimed in—“My laty vrient, my laty vrient!Cannot you tvig, mine boy,Vrom ze sound of ze kiss,He is not my miss,He is only mine laty vrient!”[pg 79]“I am afraid,”said Mr Bunker, as they finished the chorus,“that I can’t remember any more. Now, General, it’s your turn.”“Sir,”replied that gallant officer, who had listened to this ditty in purple and petrified astonishment,“I don’t know who the devil you are, but I can tell you, you won’t remain a member of this club much longer if you come into it again in this state.”“I had forgotten,”said Mr Bunker, with even more than his usual politeness,“that such an admirable music-hall critic was listening to me. I must apologise for my poor effort.”Wishing him courteously good-night, he took the Baron by the arm and walked out. While that somewhat perplexed nobleman was struggling into his coat, his friend rapidly and dexterously converted all the silk hats he could see into the condition of collapsed opera hats, and then picked a small hand-bag off the floor. The Baron walked out through the door first, but Mr Bunker stopped for an instant opposite the hall-porter’s box, and crying,“Good night to you, sir!”hurled the bag through the glass, rushed after his friend, and in less time than it takes to tell they were tearing up Pall Mall in a hansom.For a few minutes both were silent; then the Baron said slowly,“I do not qvite onderstand.”“My dear Baron,”his friend explained gaily,“these practical jokes are very common in our clubs. They are quite part of our national life, you know, and I thought you ought to see everything.”[pg 80]The Baron said nothing, but he began to realise that he was indeed in a foreign country.CHAPTER III.“Vell, Bonker, vat show to-day?”said the Baron.Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.“What would you like?”said he.They were sitting in the Baron’s private room finishing one of the renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any adventure that might turn up.He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly,“I am in your hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing.”“Do you wish instruction or entertainment?”“Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining.”“You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that you wish entertaining experience[pg 81]from which a man of your philosophical temperament can draw a moral—afterwards.”“Ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“Excellent! You provide ze experiences—I draw ze moral.”“And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I’m afraid we need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being taken—by the hand—to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul’s Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of subsequent visits.”“Bot zese places—Tousaud, Tower, Paul’s—are zey not instrogtif?”“If you wish to learn that a great number of years ago a vast quantity of inconsequent events occurred, or that in an otherwise amusing enough world there are here and there collected so many roomfuls of cheerless articles, I can strongly recommend a visit to the Tower of London or the British Museum.”“In mine own gontry,”said the Baron, thoughtfully,“I can lairn zo moch.”“Then, my dear Baron, while you are here forget it all.”“And yet,”said the Baron, still thoughtfully,“somzing I should lairn here.”[pg 82]“Certainly; you will learn something of what goes on underneath a waistcoat and a little of the contents of a corset and petticoat. Also of the strange customs of this city and the excellence of British institutions.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron, who thought that if his friend had not actually made a jest, it was at least time for one to occur.“I see, I see. I draw ze moral, ha, ha!”“This morning,”Mr Bunker continued, reflectively,“we might—let me see—well, we might do a little shopping. To tell you the truth, Baron, my South African experiences have somewhat exhausted my wardrobe.”“Ach, zo. Cairtainly ve vill shop. Bot, Bonker, Soud Africa? Vas it not Soud America?”“Did I say Africa? America of course I meant. Well, let us shop if you have no objections: then we might have a little lunch, and afterwards visit the Park. For the evening, what do you say to a theatre?”“Goot!”cried the Baron.“Make it tzos.”Mr Bunker’s shopping turned out to be a pretty extensive operation.“Loan vat you please of money,”said his friend.“A gentleman should be dressed in agreement.”With now and then an apology for his extravagance, he took full advantage of the Baron’s generosity, and ordered such an assortment of garments that his tailor could hardly bow low enough to express his gratification.After an excellent lunch in the most expensive restaurant to be found, they walked arm-in-arm westwards along[pg 83]Piccadilly, Mr Bunker pointing out the various objects of historical or ephemeral interest to be seen in that thoroughfare, the Baron drinking in this information with the serious air of the distinguished traveller.“And now we come to the Park,”said Mr Bunker.“Guard your heart, Baron.”“Ha, ha, ha!”replied the Baron.“Zo instrogtion is feenished, and now goms entertainment, ha?”“With the moral always running through it, remember.”“I shall not forget.”The sunshine had brought out a great many carriages and a sprinkling of walkers along the railings. The two friends strolled among them, eyeing the women and stopping now and then to look back at a carriage.“I suppose,”said the Baron,“zat vile you haf been avay your frients have forgot you.”As he spoke a young man looked hard at Mr Bunker, and even made a movement as though he would stop and speak to him. Mr Bunker looked blandly through him and walked on.“Do you not know zat gentleman?”“Which gentleman?”“Ze young man zat looked so at you.”“Some young men have a way of staring here, Baron.”A few minutes later a lady in a passing carriage looked round sharply at them with an air of great surprise, and half bowed.“Surely,”exclaimed the Baron,“zat vas a frient of yours!”“I am not a friend of hers, then,”Mr Bunker replied[pg 84]with a laugh.“Her bow I think must have been aimed at you.”The Baron shook his head, and seemed to be drawing a moral.“Baron,”his friend exclaimed, suddenly,“let us go back; here comes one of our most popular phenomena, a London fog. We need not stay in the Park to observe it.”The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage in and out, and closed silently behind it again.“I like not zis,”said the Baron, with a shiver.By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his shoulder.In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and began to walk hastily back again.[pg 85]“Vat for zis?”said the Baron, in great astonishment.“We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise, Baron, for my absence of mind.”* * * * *The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,”he said to himself.“I might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.”CHAPTER IV.The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a second bottle; the Baron praised theentrées, and insisted on another helping. The frequent laughter arising from their table excited general remark throughout the room, and already the waiters were whispering to the other guests that this was a German nobleman of royal blood engaged in a diplomatic mission of importance, and his friend a ducal member of the English Cabinet, at present, for reasons of state, incognito.“Bonker!”exclaimed the Baron,“I am in zat frame of head I vant a romance, an adventure”(lowering his voice a little),“mit a beautiful lady, Bonker.”“It must be a romance, Baron?”[pg 86]“A novel, a story to tell to mine frients. In a strange city man expects strange zings.”“Well, I’ll do my best for you, but I confess the provision of romantic adventures is a little outside the programme we’ve arranged.”“Ha, ha! Ve shall see, ve shall see, Bonker!”They arrived at the Corinthian Theatre about the middle of the first act, for, as Mr Bunker explained, it is always well to produce a good first impression, and few more effective means can be devised than working one’s way to the middle of a line of stalls with the play already in progress.Hardly were they seated when the Baron drove his elbow into his friend’s ribs (draped for the night, it may be remarked, with one of the Baron’s spare dress-coats) and exclaimed in an excited whisper,“Next to you, Bonker! Ach, zehr hüpsch!”Even before this hint Mr Bunker had observed that the lady on the other side of him was possessed of exceptional attractions. For a little time he studied her out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed that the stall on the farther side of her was empty, that she once or twice looked round as though she expected somebody, and that she seemed not altogether unconscious of her new neighbours. He further observed that her face was of a type that is more usually engaged in attack than defence.Then he whispered,“Would you like to know her?”“Ach, yah!”replied the Baron, eagerly.“Bot—can you?”[pg 87]Mr Bunker smiled confidently. A few minutes later he happened to let his programme fall into her lap.“I beg your pardon,”he whispered, softly, and glanced into her eyes with a smile ready.His usual discernment had not failed him. She smiled, and instantly he produced his.A little later her opera-glasses happened to slip from her hand, and though they only slipped slowly, it was no doubt owing to his ready presence of mind that their fall was averted.This time their fingers happened to touch, and they smiled without an apology.He leant towards her, looking, however, at the play. They shared a laugh over a joke that she might have been excused for not understanding; presently a criticism of some situation escaped him inadvertently, and she smiled again; soon after she gave an exclamation and he answered sympathetically, and at the end of the act the curtain came down on an acquaintance already begun. As the lights were turned up, and here and there men began to go out, she again looked at the entrances in some apparent concern, either lest some one should not come in or lest some one should.“He is late,”said Mr Bunker, smiling.She gave a very enticing look of surprise, and consented to smile back before she coyly looked away again.“An erring husband, I presume.”She admitted that it was in fact a husband who had failed her.“But,”she added,“I’m afraid—I mean I expect he’ll[pg 88]come in after the next act. It’s so tiresome of him to disappoint me like this.”Mr Bunker expressed the deepest sympathy with her unfortunate predicament.“He has his ticket, of course?”But it seemed that she had both the tickets with her, an arrangement which he immediately denounced as likely to lead to difficulties when her husband arrived. He further, in the most obliging manner, suggested that he should take the ticket for the other seat to the booking office and leave instructions for its being given to the gentleman on his arrival. The lady gave him a curious little glance that seemed to imply a mixture of doubt as to his motives with confidence in his abilities, and then with many thanks agreed to his suggestion. Mr Bunker took the ticket and rose at once.“That I may be sure you are in good company while I am away,”said he,“permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”And the Baron promptly took his vacant seat.On his return Mr Bunker found his friend wreathed in smiles and engaged in the most animated conversation with the lady, and before the last act was over, he gathered from such scraps of conversation as reached his ears that Rudolph von Blitzenberg had little to learn in one department of a nobleman’s duties.“I wonder where my husband can be,”the lady whispered.“Ach, heed him not, fair lady,”replied the Baron.“Am I not instead of a hosband?”[pg 89]“I’m afraid you’re a very naughty man, Baron.”“Ven I am viz you,”the gallant Baron answered,“I forget myself all bot your charms.”These advances being made in the most dulcet tones of which the nobleman was master, and accompanied by the most enamoured expression, it is not surprising that the lady permitted herself to listen to them with perhaps too ready an ear. What Mr Bunker’s arrangement with the booking clerk had been was never quite clear, but certainly the erring husband failed to make his appearance at all, and at the last fall of the curtain she was easily persuaded to let the Baron escort her home.“I know I ought not, but if a husband deserts one so faithlessly, what can I do?”she said, with a very becoming little shrug of her shoulders and a captivating lift of her eyebrows.“Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort.”“But won’t it be troubling you?”“Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!”“Excuse me, Baron,”said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow;“if you will wait here at the door I shall send up a cab.”“Goot!”cried the Baron,“a zouzand zanks!”“I myself,”added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady,“shall say good night now. The best of luck, Baron!”In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.“Not too qvickly!”he added, in a stage aside.[pg 90]They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a marriage bell,—almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.“Why are we going down Whitehall?”the lady exclaimed, suddenly.“I know not,”replied the Baron, placidly.“Ask him where he is going!”she said.The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply,“All right, sir,”came back through the hole in the roof.“I seem to know that man’s voice,”the lady said.“He must have driven me before.”“To me all ze English speak ze same,”replied the Baron.“All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more reckless.“Can’t you catch the reins?”cried the lady, who had got into a terrible fright.The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady burst into tears.[pg 91]The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets, past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown wilderness of brick.“Oh, don’t let him murder me!”sobbed the lady.“Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and blitzen! Haf courage, dear!”“Oh dear, oh dear!”wailed the lady.“I shallneverdo it again!”They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was rubbing his head some yards in front.“Teufel!”exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet.“Ach, mine dearest vun, art thou hurt?”The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she burst into hysterical laughter.“Ach, zo,”said the Baron, much relieved,“zen vill I see ze cabman.”That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the sight of the driver’s face he started back in blank astonishment.“Bonker!”“It is I indeed, my dear Baron,”replied that gentleman,[pg 92]politely.“I must ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to your friend, I don’t know how I am to make my peace with her.”“Bot—bot vat means zis?”gasped the Baron.“I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required, besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady’s better acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear lady, can I assist you in any way?”Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative answer.“Where are we?”asked the lady, who hovered between fright and indignation.Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.“It would be rash to hazard an opinion,”he replied.“Well!”cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright.“Do you mean to say you’ve brought us here against our wills and probably got me intodreadfultrouble, and you don’t even know where we are?”Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.“Oneoughtto be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of those stars,”he replied;“but, to tell the truth, I don’t quite know which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely through ignorance, that I cannot direct you.”The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.“You’vehelped to get me into this mess,”she said, tartly.“What do you propose to do?”[pg 93]“My fairest——”“Don’t!”she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one another.“It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I’m afraid, is smashed beyond hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually arrive somewhere.”There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pass, they set out on foot. At last, after half an hour’s ramble through the solitudes of South London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way home, the lady’s indignation again gave way to fright.“WhatamI to do? WhatamI to do?”she wailed.“Oh, whatever will my husband say?”In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so infectious was his assurance, that, when at last they reached Eaton Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained,“My English, he is unsafe.”After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a dressing-gown.“Louisa!”he cried.“What the dev—where on earth have you been? The police are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is with you?”[pg 94]Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.“My dear sir,”he said,“we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night,”and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, assuring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.“So you have had your adventure, Baron,”he added, with a smile.For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful guffaw,“Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas pleasant vile it lasted!”
[pg 65]PART II.CHAPTER I.The Baron Rudolf von Blitzenberg sat by himself at a table in the dining-room of the Hôtel Mayonaise, which, as everybody knows, is the largest and most expensive in London. He was a young man of a florid and burly Teutonic type and the most ingenuous countenance. Being possessed of a curious and enterprising disposition, as well as the most ample means, he had left his ancestral castle in Bavaria to study for a few months the customs and politics of England. In the language he was already proficient, and he had promised himself an amusing as well as an instructive visit. But, although he had only arrived in London that morning, he was already beginning to feel an uncomfortable apprehension lest in both respects he should be disappointed. Though his introductions were the best with which the British Ambassador could supply him, they were only three or four in number,—for, not wishing to be hampered with too many acquaintances, he had rather chosen quality than quantity: and now, in the course of the afternoon, he had found to his chagrin that in every case the families were out of town. In fact, so far as he could learn, they were[pg 66]not even at their own country seats. One was abroad, another gone to the seaside to recover from the mumps, or a third paying a round of visits.The disappointment was sharp, he felt utterly at sea as to what he should do, and he was already beginning to experience the loneliness of a single mortal in a crowded hotel.As the frosty evening was setting in and the shops were being lit, he had strolled out into the streets in the vague hope of meeting some strange foreign adventure, or perhaps even happily lighting upon some half-forgotten diplomatic acquaintance. But he found the pavements crowded with a throng who took no notice of him at all, but seemed every man and most women of them to be pushing steadily, and generally silently, towards a million mysterious goals. Not that he could tell they were silent except by their set lips, for the noise of wheels and horses on so many hundreds of miles of streets, and the cries of busmen and vendors of evening papers, made such a hubbub that he felt before long in a maze. He lost his way four times, and was patronisingly set right by beneficent policemen; and at last, feeling like a man who has fallen off a precipice on to a soft place—none the worse but quite bewildered—he struggled back to his hotel. There he spun out his time by watching the people come and go, and at last dressed with extra deliberation.About eight o’clock he sat down to his solitary dinner. The great gilt and panelled room was full of diners and bustling waiters, but there was not a face the Baron had ever seen before. He was just finishing a plate of whitebait[pg 67]when he observed a stranger enter the room and stroll in a very self-possessed manner down the middle, glancing at the tables round him as though he was looking either for a friend or a desirable seat. This gentleman was tall, fair, and clean-shaved; he was dressed in a suit of well-fitting tweeds, and his air impressed the Baron as being natural and yet distinguished. At last his eye fell upon the Baron, who felt conscious of undergoing a quick, critical scrutiny. The table at which that nobleman sat was laid for two, and coming apparently to a sudden resolution, the good-looking stranger seated himself in the vacant chair. In an agreeable voice and with an unmistakably well-bred air he asked a waiter for the wine-list, and then, like a man with an excellent appetite, fell to upon the varioushors d’œuvres, the entire collection of which, in fact, he consumed in a wonderfully short space of time. The Baron, being himself no trifler with his victuals, regarded this feat with sympathetic approval, and began to feel a little less alone in the world. His naturally open disposition was warmed besides, owing to a slight misconception he had fallen into, perfectly excusable however in a foreigner. He thought he had read somewhere that port was the usual accompaniment to the first courses of an English dinner, and as his waiter had been somewhat dilatory in bringing him the more substantial items of the repast, he had already drunk three claret-glasses of this cheering wine. The chill recollections of his sixteen quarterings and the exclusiveness he had determined to maintain as becoming to his rank were already melting, and he met the stranger’s[pg 68]eye with what for the life of him he could not help being a cordial look.Hisvis-à-viscaught the glance, smiled back, and immediately asked, with the most charming politeness,“Do you care, sir, to split a bottle of champagne?”“To—er—shplid?”said the Baron, with a disappointed consciousness of having been put at a loss in his English by the very first man who had spoken to him.“I beg your pardon,—I am afraid I was unintelligibly idiomatic. To divide, I should say, you consuming one-half, I the other. Am I clear, sir?”For a moment the Baron was a little taken aback, and then recollecting that the dining habits of the English were still new to him, he concluded that the suggestion was probably a customary act of courtesy. He had already come to the conclusion that the gentleman must be a person of rank, and he replied affably,“Yah—zat is, vid pleasure. Zanks, very.”“The pleasure is mine,”said the stranger—“and half the bottle,”he added, smiling.The Baron, whose perception of humour had been abnormally increased by this time, laughed hilariously at the infection of his new acquaintance’s smile.“Goot, goot!”he cried.“Ach, yah, zo.”“Am I right, sir, in supposing that, despite the perfection of your English accent, I cannot be fortunate enough to claim you as a countryman?”asked the stranger.The Baron’s resolutions of reticence had vanished altogether before such unexpected and (he could not[pg 69]but think) un-English friendliness. He unburdened his heart with a rush.“You have ze right. I am Deutsch. I have gom to England zis day for to lairn and to amuse myself. But mein, vat you call?—introdogtions zey are not inside, zat is zey are from off. Not von, all, every single gone to ze gontry or to abroad. I am alone, I eat my dinner in zolitude, I am pleased to meet you, sare.”A cork popped and the champagne frothed into the stranger’s glass. Raising it to his lips, he said,“Prosit!”“Prosit!”responded the Baron, enthusiastically.“You know ze Deutsch, sare?”“I am safer in English, I confess.”“Ach, das ist goot, I vant for to practeese. Ve vill talk English.”“With all my heart,”said the stranger.“I, too, am alone, and I hold myself more than fortunate in making your acquaintance. It’s a devilish dull world when one can’t share a bottle—or a brace of them, for the matter of that.”“You know London?”asked the Baron.“I used to, and I daresay my memory will revive.”“I know it not, pairhaps you can inform. I haf gom, as I say, to-day.”“With pleasure,”said the stranger, readily.“In fact, if you are ever disengaged I may possibly be able to act as showman.”“Showman!”roared the Baron, thinking he had discovered a jest.“Ha, ha, ha! Goot, zehr goot!”The other looked a trifle astonished for an instant,[pg 70]and then as he sipped his champagne an expression of intense satisfaction came over his face.“I can put away my lantern,”he said to himself,—“I have found him.”“May I have the boldness to ask your name, sir?”he asked aloud.“Ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”that nobleman replied.“Yours, sare—may I dare?”“Francis Bunker, at your service, Baron.”“You are noble?”queried the Baron a little anxiously, for his prejudices on this point were strong.“According to your standard I believe I may say so. That’s to say, my family have borne arms for two hundred odd generations; twenty-five per cent of them have died of good living; and the most malicious have never accused us of brains. I myself may not be very typical, but I assure you it isn’t my ancestors’ fault.”The latter part of this explanation entirely puzzled the Baron. The first statement, though eminently satisfactory, was also a little bewildering.“Two hondred generations?”he asked, courteously.“Zat is a vary old family. All bore arms you say, Mistair Bonker?”“All,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely.“The first few bore tails as well.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“You are a fonny man I pairceive, vat you call clown, yes?”“What my friends call clown, and I call wit,”Mr Bunker corrected.“Vit! Ha, ha, ha!”roared the Baron, whose mind[pg 71]was now in an El Dorado of humour when jokes grew like daisies. His loneliness had disappeared as if by magic; as course succeeded course his contentment showed itself in a perpetually beaming smile: he ceased to worry even about his friend’s pedigree, convinced in his mind that manners so delightful and distinguished could only result from repeated quarterings and unoccupied forefathers. Yet by the time dessert arrived and he had again returned to his port, he began to feel an extreme curiosity to know more concerning Mr Bunker. He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive. Mr Bunker, for his part, had so far confined his confidences to his name.“My dear Bonker,”said the Baron at last—he had become quite familiar by this time—“vat make you in London? I fear you are bird of passage. Do you stay long?”Mr Bunker cracked a nut, looking very serious; then he leant on one elbow, glanced up at the ceiling pensively, and sighed.“I hope I do not ask vat I should not,”the Baron interposed, courteously.“My dear Baron, ask what you like,”replied Mr Bunker.“In a city full of strangers, or of friends who[pg 72]have forgotten me, you alone have my confidence. My story is a common one of youthful folly and present repentance, but such as it is, you are welcome to it.”The Baron gulped down half a glass of port and leaned forward sympathetically.“My father,”Mr Bunker continued with an air of half-sad reminiscence,“is one of the largest landowners and the head of one of the most ancient families in the north of England. I was his eldest son and heir. I am still, I have every reason to believe, his eldest son, but my heirship, I regret to say, is more doubtful. I spent a prodigal youth and a larger sum of money than my poor father approved of. He was a strict though a kind parent, and for the good of my health and the replenishment of the family coffers, which had been sadly drained by my extravagance, he sent me abroad. There I have led a roving life for the last six years, and at last, my wild oats sown, reaped, and gathered in (and a well-filled stackyard they made, I can assure you), I decided to return to England and become an ornament to respectable society. Like you, I arrived in London to-day, but only to find to my disgust that my family have gone to winter in Egypt. So you see that at present I am like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock and waiting, with what patience I can muster, for a boat to take me off.”“You mean,”inquired the Baron, anxiously,“that you vish to go to Egypt at vonce?”“I had thought of it; though there is a difficulty in the way, I admit.”“You vill not stay zen here?”[pg 73]“My dear Baron, why should I? I have neither friends nor——”He stopped abruptly.“I do not like to zink I shall lose your company so soon.”“I admit,”allowed Mr Bunker,“that this fortunate meeting tempts me to stay.”“Vy not?”said the Baron, cordially.“Can your fader not vait to see you?”“I hardly think he will worry about me, I confess.”“Zen stay, my goot Bonker!”“Unfortunately there is the same difficulty as stands in the way of my going to Egypt.”“And may I inquire vat zat is?”“To tell you the truth,”replied Mr Bunker, with an air of reluctant candour,“my funds are rather low. I had trusted to finding my father at home, but as he isn’t, why——”he shrugged his shoulders and threw himself back in his chair.The Baron seemed struck with an idea which he hesitated to express.“Shall we smoke?”his friend suggested.“Vaiter!”cried the Baron,“bring here two best cigars and two coffee!”“A liqueur, Baron?”“Ach, yah. Vat for you?”“A liqueur brandy suggests itself.”“Vaiter! and two brandy.”“And now,”said the Baron,“I haf an idea, Bonker.”[pg 74]CHAPTER II.The Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, as I have said, had a warm heart. He was, besides, alone in one hundred and twenty square miles of strangers and foreigners when he had happened upon this congenial spirit. He began in a tone of the most ingenuous friendliness—“I haf no friends here. My introdogtions zey are gone. Bot I haf moch money, and I vish a, vat you say?—showman, ha, ha, ha! You haf too leetle money and no friends and you can show. You show and I will loan you vat you vish. May I dare to suggest?”“My dear Baron!”“My goot Bonker! I am in airnest, I assure. Vy not? It is vun gentleman and anozzer.”“You are far too kind.”“It is to myself I am kind, zen. I vant a guide, a frient. It is a loan. Do not scruple. Ven your fader goms you can pay if you please. It is nozing to me.”“Well, my dear Baron,”said Mr Bunker, like a man persuaded against his will,“what can I say? I confess I might find a little difficulty in replenishing my purse without resorting to disagreeable means, and if you really wish my society, why——”“Zen it is a bairgain?”cried the Baron.“If you insist——”“I insist. Vaiter! Alzo two ozzer liqueur. Ve most drink to ze bairgain, Bonker.”They pledged each other cordially, and talked from[pg 75]that moment like old friends. The Baron was thoroughly pleased with himself, and Mr Bunker seemed no less gratified at his own good fortune. Half an hour went quickly by, and then the Baron exclaimed,“Let us do zomzing to-night, Bonker. I burn for to begin zis show of London.”“What would you care to do, Baron? It is rather late, I am afraid, to think of a theatre. What do you say to a music-hall?”“Music-hall? I haf seen zem at home. Damned amusing, das ist ze expression, yes?”“It is a perfect description.”“Bot,”continued the Baron, solemnly,“I must not begin vid ze vickedest.”“And yet,”replied his friend, persuasively,“even wickedness needs a beginning.”“Bot, if I begin I may not stop. Zomzing more qviet ze first night. Haf you a club?”Mr Bunker pondered for a moment, and a curious smile stole across his face. Then it vanished, and he answered readily,“Certainly, Baron, an excellent idea. I haven’t been to my club for so long that it never struck me. Let us come.”“Goot!”cried the Baron, rising with alacrity.They put on their coats (Mr Bunker’s, it may be remarked, being a handsome fur-lined garment), the porter hailed a cab, and the driver was ordered to take them to the Regent’s Club in Pall Mall. The Baron knew it by reputation as the most exclusive in London, and his opinion of his friend rose still higher.[pg 76]They joined a jingling string of other hansoms and sped swiftly through the exhilarating bustle of the streets. To the Baron it seemed as if a great change had come over the city since he wandered disconsolately before dinner. Carried swiftly to the music of the little bells through the sharp air and the London night that is brighter than day, with a friend by his side and a good dinner within, he marked the most astonishing difference. All the people seemed to talk and laugh, and for his own part he found it hard to keep his tongue still.“I know ze name of ze Regent’s,”he said;“vun club of ze best, is it not?”“The very best club, Baron.”“Zey are all noble?”“In many cases the receipts for their escutcheons are still in their pockets.”Though the precise significance of this explanation was not quite clear to the Baron, it sounded eminently satisfactory.“Zo?”he said.“I shall be moch interested to see zem.”As they entered the club the porter stared at them curiously, and even made a movement as though he would step out and address them; but Mr Bunker, wishing him a courteous good evening, walked briskly up to the hat-and-cloak racks in the hall. A young man had just hung up his hat, and as he was divesting himself of his coat, Mr Bunker quickly took the hat down, glanced at the name inside, and replaced it on its peg. Then he held out his hand and addressed the young man cordially.[pg 77]“Good evening, Transome, how are you?”said he, and, heedless of the look of surprise on the other’s face, he turned towards the Baron and added,“Let me introduce the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg—Mr Transome. The Baron has just come to England, and I thought he couldn’t begin better than by a visit to the Regent’s. Let us come into the smoking-room.”In a few minutes they were all on the best of terms. A certain perplexity, and almost shyness, that the young man showed at first, vanished rapidly before the Baron’s cordiality and Mr Bunker’s well-bred charm of manner.They were deeply engrossed in a discussion on the reigning sovereign of the Baron’s native land, a monarch of whose enlightened policy that nobleman spoke with pardonable pride, when two elderly gentlemen entered the room.“Who are these?”Mr Bunker whispered to Transome.“I know them very well, but I am always bad at names.”“Lord Fabrigas and General M’Dermott,”replied Transome.Instantly Mr Bunker rose and greeted the new-comers.“Good evening, Lord Fabrigas; good evening, General. You have just come in time to be introduced to the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, whom you doubtless know by reputation.”The Baron rose and bowed, and it struck him that elderly English gentlemen were singularly stiff and constrained in their manner. Mr Bunker, however, continued cheerfully,“We are just going to have a smoking concert. Will you begin, Baron?”[pg 78]“I know not English songs,”replied the Baron,“bot I should like moch to hear.”“You must join in the chorus, then.”“Certainly, Bonker. I haf a voice zat is considered—vat you call—deafening, yes?—in ze chorus.”Mr Bunker cleared his throat, and, just as the General was on the point of interposing a remark, struck up hastily; and for the first time in its long and honourable history the smoking-room of the Regent’s Club reechoed to a popular music-hall ditty.“They sometimes call ’em duckies, they sometimes call ’em pets,And sometimes they refer to ’em as dearsThey live on little matters that a gentleman forgets,In a little world of giggles and of tears;There are different varieties from which a man may choose,There are sorts and shapes and sizes without end,But the kind I’d pick myself is the kind you introduceBy the simple title of‘my lady friend.’”“Chorus, Baron!”And then he trolled in waltz time this edifying refrain—“My lady friend, my lady friend!Can’t you twig, dear boys,From the sound of the kissesShe isn’t my misses,She’s only my lady friend!”In a voice like a train going over a bridge the Baron chimed in—“My laty vrient, my laty vrient!Cannot you tvig, mine boy,Vrom ze sound of ze kiss,He is not my miss,He is only mine laty vrient!”[pg 79]“I am afraid,”said Mr Bunker, as they finished the chorus,“that I can’t remember any more. Now, General, it’s your turn.”“Sir,”replied that gallant officer, who had listened to this ditty in purple and petrified astonishment,“I don’t know who the devil you are, but I can tell you, you won’t remain a member of this club much longer if you come into it again in this state.”“I had forgotten,”said Mr Bunker, with even more than his usual politeness,“that such an admirable music-hall critic was listening to me. I must apologise for my poor effort.”Wishing him courteously good-night, he took the Baron by the arm and walked out. While that somewhat perplexed nobleman was struggling into his coat, his friend rapidly and dexterously converted all the silk hats he could see into the condition of collapsed opera hats, and then picked a small hand-bag off the floor. The Baron walked out through the door first, but Mr Bunker stopped for an instant opposite the hall-porter’s box, and crying,“Good night to you, sir!”hurled the bag through the glass, rushed after his friend, and in less time than it takes to tell they were tearing up Pall Mall in a hansom.For a few minutes both were silent; then the Baron said slowly,“I do not qvite onderstand.”“My dear Baron,”his friend explained gaily,“these practical jokes are very common in our clubs. They are quite part of our national life, you know, and I thought you ought to see everything.”[pg 80]The Baron said nothing, but he began to realise that he was indeed in a foreign country.CHAPTER III.“Vell, Bonker, vat show to-day?”said the Baron.Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.“What would you like?”said he.They were sitting in the Baron’s private room finishing one of the renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any adventure that might turn up.He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly,“I am in your hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing.”“Do you wish instruction or entertainment?”“Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining.”“You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that you wish entertaining experience[pg 81]from which a man of your philosophical temperament can draw a moral—afterwards.”“Ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“Excellent! You provide ze experiences—I draw ze moral.”“And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I’m afraid we need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being taken—by the hand—to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul’s Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of subsequent visits.”“Bot zese places—Tousaud, Tower, Paul’s—are zey not instrogtif?”“If you wish to learn that a great number of years ago a vast quantity of inconsequent events occurred, or that in an otherwise amusing enough world there are here and there collected so many roomfuls of cheerless articles, I can strongly recommend a visit to the Tower of London or the British Museum.”“In mine own gontry,”said the Baron, thoughtfully,“I can lairn zo moch.”“Then, my dear Baron, while you are here forget it all.”“And yet,”said the Baron, still thoughtfully,“somzing I should lairn here.”[pg 82]“Certainly; you will learn something of what goes on underneath a waistcoat and a little of the contents of a corset and petticoat. Also of the strange customs of this city and the excellence of British institutions.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron, who thought that if his friend had not actually made a jest, it was at least time for one to occur.“I see, I see. I draw ze moral, ha, ha!”“This morning,”Mr Bunker continued, reflectively,“we might—let me see—well, we might do a little shopping. To tell you the truth, Baron, my South African experiences have somewhat exhausted my wardrobe.”“Ach, zo. Cairtainly ve vill shop. Bot, Bonker, Soud Africa? Vas it not Soud America?”“Did I say Africa? America of course I meant. Well, let us shop if you have no objections: then we might have a little lunch, and afterwards visit the Park. For the evening, what do you say to a theatre?”“Goot!”cried the Baron.“Make it tzos.”Mr Bunker’s shopping turned out to be a pretty extensive operation.“Loan vat you please of money,”said his friend.“A gentleman should be dressed in agreement.”With now and then an apology for his extravagance, he took full advantage of the Baron’s generosity, and ordered such an assortment of garments that his tailor could hardly bow low enough to express his gratification.After an excellent lunch in the most expensive restaurant to be found, they walked arm-in-arm westwards along[pg 83]Piccadilly, Mr Bunker pointing out the various objects of historical or ephemeral interest to be seen in that thoroughfare, the Baron drinking in this information with the serious air of the distinguished traveller.“And now we come to the Park,”said Mr Bunker.“Guard your heart, Baron.”“Ha, ha, ha!”replied the Baron.“Zo instrogtion is feenished, and now goms entertainment, ha?”“With the moral always running through it, remember.”“I shall not forget.”The sunshine had brought out a great many carriages and a sprinkling of walkers along the railings. The two friends strolled among them, eyeing the women and stopping now and then to look back at a carriage.“I suppose,”said the Baron,“zat vile you haf been avay your frients have forgot you.”As he spoke a young man looked hard at Mr Bunker, and even made a movement as though he would stop and speak to him. Mr Bunker looked blandly through him and walked on.“Do you not know zat gentleman?”“Which gentleman?”“Ze young man zat looked so at you.”“Some young men have a way of staring here, Baron.”A few minutes later a lady in a passing carriage looked round sharply at them with an air of great surprise, and half bowed.“Surely,”exclaimed the Baron,“zat vas a frient of yours!”“I am not a friend of hers, then,”Mr Bunker replied[pg 84]with a laugh.“Her bow I think must have been aimed at you.”The Baron shook his head, and seemed to be drawing a moral.“Baron,”his friend exclaimed, suddenly,“let us go back; here comes one of our most popular phenomena, a London fog. We need not stay in the Park to observe it.”The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage in and out, and closed silently behind it again.“I like not zis,”said the Baron, with a shiver.By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his shoulder.In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and began to walk hastily back again.[pg 85]“Vat for zis?”said the Baron, in great astonishment.“We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise, Baron, for my absence of mind.”* * * * *The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,”he said to himself.“I might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.”CHAPTER IV.The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a second bottle; the Baron praised theentrées, and insisted on another helping. The frequent laughter arising from their table excited general remark throughout the room, and already the waiters were whispering to the other guests that this was a German nobleman of royal blood engaged in a diplomatic mission of importance, and his friend a ducal member of the English Cabinet, at present, for reasons of state, incognito.“Bonker!”exclaimed the Baron,“I am in zat frame of head I vant a romance, an adventure”(lowering his voice a little),“mit a beautiful lady, Bonker.”“It must be a romance, Baron?”[pg 86]“A novel, a story to tell to mine frients. In a strange city man expects strange zings.”“Well, I’ll do my best for you, but I confess the provision of romantic adventures is a little outside the programme we’ve arranged.”“Ha, ha! Ve shall see, ve shall see, Bonker!”They arrived at the Corinthian Theatre about the middle of the first act, for, as Mr Bunker explained, it is always well to produce a good first impression, and few more effective means can be devised than working one’s way to the middle of a line of stalls with the play already in progress.Hardly were they seated when the Baron drove his elbow into his friend’s ribs (draped for the night, it may be remarked, with one of the Baron’s spare dress-coats) and exclaimed in an excited whisper,“Next to you, Bonker! Ach, zehr hüpsch!”Even before this hint Mr Bunker had observed that the lady on the other side of him was possessed of exceptional attractions. For a little time he studied her out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed that the stall on the farther side of her was empty, that she once or twice looked round as though she expected somebody, and that she seemed not altogether unconscious of her new neighbours. He further observed that her face was of a type that is more usually engaged in attack than defence.Then he whispered,“Would you like to know her?”“Ach, yah!”replied the Baron, eagerly.“Bot—can you?”[pg 87]Mr Bunker smiled confidently. A few minutes later he happened to let his programme fall into her lap.“I beg your pardon,”he whispered, softly, and glanced into her eyes with a smile ready.His usual discernment had not failed him. She smiled, and instantly he produced his.A little later her opera-glasses happened to slip from her hand, and though they only slipped slowly, it was no doubt owing to his ready presence of mind that their fall was averted.This time their fingers happened to touch, and they smiled without an apology.He leant towards her, looking, however, at the play. They shared a laugh over a joke that she might have been excused for not understanding; presently a criticism of some situation escaped him inadvertently, and she smiled again; soon after she gave an exclamation and he answered sympathetically, and at the end of the act the curtain came down on an acquaintance already begun. As the lights were turned up, and here and there men began to go out, she again looked at the entrances in some apparent concern, either lest some one should not come in or lest some one should.“He is late,”said Mr Bunker, smiling.She gave a very enticing look of surprise, and consented to smile back before she coyly looked away again.“An erring husband, I presume.”She admitted that it was in fact a husband who had failed her.“But,”she added,“I’m afraid—I mean I expect he’ll[pg 88]come in after the next act. It’s so tiresome of him to disappoint me like this.”Mr Bunker expressed the deepest sympathy with her unfortunate predicament.“He has his ticket, of course?”But it seemed that she had both the tickets with her, an arrangement which he immediately denounced as likely to lead to difficulties when her husband arrived. He further, in the most obliging manner, suggested that he should take the ticket for the other seat to the booking office and leave instructions for its being given to the gentleman on his arrival. The lady gave him a curious little glance that seemed to imply a mixture of doubt as to his motives with confidence in his abilities, and then with many thanks agreed to his suggestion. Mr Bunker took the ticket and rose at once.“That I may be sure you are in good company while I am away,”said he,“permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”And the Baron promptly took his vacant seat.On his return Mr Bunker found his friend wreathed in smiles and engaged in the most animated conversation with the lady, and before the last act was over, he gathered from such scraps of conversation as reached his ears that Rudolph von Blitzenberg had little to learn in one department of a nobleman’s duties.“I wonder where my husband can be,”the lady whispered.“Ach, heed him not, fair lady,”replied the Baron.“Am I not instead of a hosband?”[pg 89]“I’m afraid you’re a very naughty man, Baron.”“Ven I am viz you,”the gallant Baron answered,“I forget myself all bot your charms.”These advances being made in the most dulcet tones of which the nobleman was master, and accompanied by the most enamoured expression, it is not surprising that the lady permitted herself to listen to them with perhaps too ready an ear. What Mr Bunker’s arrangement with the booking clerk had been was never quite clear, but certainly the erring husband failed to make his appearance at all, and at the last fall of the curtain she was easily persuaded to let the Baron escort her home.“I know I ought not, but if a husband deserts one so faithlessly, what can I do?”she said, with a very becoming little shrug of her shoulders and a captivating lift of her eyebrows.“Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort.”“But won’t it be troubling you?”“Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!”“Excuse me, Baron,”said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow;“if you will wait here at the door I shall send up a cab.”“Goot!”cried the Baron,“a zouzand zanks!”“I myself,”added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady,“shall say good night now. The best of luck, Baron!”In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.“Not too qvickly!”he added, in a stage aside.[pg 90]They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a marriage bell,—almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.“Why are we going down Whitehall?”the lady exclaimed, suddenly.“I know not,”replied the Baron, placidly.“Ask him where he is going!”she said.The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply,“All right, sir,”came back through the hole in the roof.“I seem to know that man’s voice,”the lady said.“He must have driven me before.”“To me all ze English speak ze same,”replied the Baron.“All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more reckless.“Can’t you catch the reins?”cried the lady, who had got into a terrible fright.The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady burst into tears.[pg 91]The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets, past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown wilderness of brick.“Oh, don’t let him murder me!”sobbed the lady.“Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and blitzen! Haf courage, dear!”“Oh dear, oh dear!”wailed the lady.“I shallneverdo it again!”They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was rubbing his head some yards in front.“Teufel!”exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet.“Ach, mine dearest vun, art thou hurt?”The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she burst into hysterical laughter.“Ach, zo,”said the Baron, much relieved,“zen vill I see ze cabman.”That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the sight of the driver’s face he started back in blank astonishment.“Bonker!”“It is I indeed, my dear Baron,”replied that gentleman,[pg 92]politely.“I must ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to your friend, I don’t know how I am to make my peace with her.”“Bot—bot vat means zis?”gasped the Baron.“I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required, besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady’s better acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear lady, can I assist you in any way?”Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative answer.“Where are we?”asked the lady, who hovered between fright and indignation.Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.“It would be rash to hazard an opinion,”he replied.“Well!”cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright.“Do you mean to say you’ve brought us here against our wills and probably got me intodreadfultrouble, and you don’t even know where we are?”Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.“Oneoughtto be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of those stars,”he replied;“but, to tell the truth, I don’t quite know which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely through ignorance, that I cannot direct you.”The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.“You’vehelped to get me into this mess,”she said, tartly.“What do you propose to do?”[pg 93]“My fairest——”“Don’t!”she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one another.“It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I’m afraid, is smashed beyond hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually arrive somewhere.”There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pass, they set out on foot. At last, after half an hour’s ramble through the solitudes of South London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way home, the lady’s indignation again gave way to fright.“WhatamI to do? WhatamI to do?”she wailed.“Oh, whatever will my husband say?”In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so infectious was his assurance, that, when at last they reached Eaton Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained,“My English, he is unsafe.”After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a dressing-gown.“Louisa!”he cried.“What the dev—where on earth have you been? The police are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is with you?”[pg 94]Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.“My dear sir,”he said,“we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night,”and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, assuring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.“So you have had your adventure, Baron,”he added, with a smile.For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful guffaw,“Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas pleasant vile it lasted!”
[pg 65]PART II.CHAPTER I.The Baron Rudolf von Blitzenberg sat by himself at a table in the dining-room of the Hôtel Mayonaise, which, as everybody knows, is the largest and most expensive in London. He was a young man of a florid and burly Teutonic type and the most ingenuous countenance. Being possessed of a curious and enterprising disposition, as well as the most ample means, he had left his ancestral castle in Bavaria to study for a few months the customs and politics of England. In the language he was already proficient, and he had promised himself an amusing as well as an instructive visit. But, although he had only arrived in London that morning, he was already beginning to feel an uncomfortable apprehension lest in both respects he should be disappointed. Though his introductions were the best with which the British Ambassador could supply him, they were only three or four in number,—for, not wishing to be hampered with too many acquaintances, he had rather chosen quality than quantity: and now, in the course of the afternoon, he had found to his chagrin that in every case the families were out of town. In fact, so far as he could learn, they were[pg 66]not even at their own country seats. One was abroad, another gone to the seaside to recover from the mumps, or a third paying a round of visits.The disappointment was sharp, he felt utterly at sea as to what he should do, and he was already beginning to experience the loneliness of a single mortal in a crowded hotel.As the frosty evening was setting in and the shops were being lit, he had strolled out into the streets in the vague hope of meeting some strange foreign adventure, or perhaps even happily lighting upon some half-forgotten diplomatic acquaintance. But he found the pavements crowded with a throng who took no notice of him at all, but seemed every man and most women of them to be pushing steadily, and generally silently, towards a million mysterious goals. Not that he could tell they were silent except by their set lips, for the noise of wheels and horses on so many hundreds of miles of streets, and the cries of busmen and vendors of evening papers, made such a hubbub that he felt before long in a maze. He lost his way four times, and was patronisingly set right by beneficent policemen; and at last, feeling like a man who has fallen off a precipice on to a soft place—none the worse but quite bewildered—he struggled back to his hotel. There he spun out his time by watching the people come and go, and at last dressed with extra deliberation.About eight o’clock he sat down to his solitary dinner. The great gilt and panelled room was full of diners and bustling waiters, but there was not a face the Baron had ever seen before. He was just finishing a plate of whitebait[pg 67]when he observed a stranger enter the room and stroll in a very self-possessed manner down the middle, glancing at the tables round him as though he was looking either for a friend or a desirable seat. This gentleman was tall, fair, and clean-shaved; he was dressed in a suit of well-fitting tweeds, and his air impressed the Baron as being natural and yet distinguished. At last his eye fell upon the Baron, who felt conscious of undergoing a quick, critical scrutiny. The table at which that nobleman sat was laid for two, and coming apparently to a sudden resolution, the good-looking stranger seated himself in the vacant chair. In an agreeable voice and with an unmistakably well-bred air he asked a waiter for the wine-list, and then, like a man with an excellent appetite, fell to upon the varioushors d’œuvres, the entire collection of which, in fact, he consumed in a wonderfully short space of time. The Baron, being himself no trifler with his victuals, regarded this feat with sympathetic approval, and began to feel a little less alone in the world. His naturally open disposition was warmed besides, owing to a slight misconception he had fallen into, perfectly excusable however in a foreigner. He thought he had read somewhere that port was the usual accompaniment to the first courses of an English dinner, and as his waiter had been somewhat dilatory in bringing him the more substantial items of the repast, he had already drunk three claret-glasses of this cheering wine. The chill recollections of his sixteen quarterings and the exclusiveness he had determined to maintain as becoming to his rank were already melting, and he met the stranger’s[pg 68]eye with what for the life of him he could not help being a cordial look.Hisvis-à-viscaught the glance, smiled back, and immediately asked, with the most charming politeness,“Do you care, sir, to split a bottle of champagne?”“To—er—shplid?”said the Baron, with a disappointed consciousness of having been put at a loss in his English by the very first man who had spoken to him.“I beg your pardon,—I am afraid I was unintelligibly idiomatic. To divide, I should say, you consuming one-half, I the other. Am I clear, sir?”For a moment the Baron was a little taken aback, and then recollecting that the dining habits of the English were still new to him, he concluded that the suggestion was probably a customary act of courtesy. He had already come to the conclusion that the gentleman must be a person of rank, and he replied affably,“Yah—zat is, vid pleasure. Zanks, very.”“The pleasure is mine,”said the stranger—“and half the bottle,”he added, smiling.The Baron, whose perception of humour had been abnormally increased by this time, laughed hilariously at the infection of his new acquaintance’s smile.“Goot, goot!”he cried.“Ach, yah, zo.”“Am I right, sir, in supposing that, despite the perfection of your English accent, I cannot be fortunate enough to claim you as a countryman?”asked the stranger.The Baron’s resolutions of reticence had vanished altogether before such unexpected and (he could not[pg 69]but think) un-English friendliness. He unburdened his heart with a rush.“You have ze right. I am Deutsch. I have gom to England zis day for to lairn and to amuse myself. But mein, vat you call?—introdogtions zey are not inside, zat is zey are from off. Not von, all, every single gone to ze gontry or to abroad. I am alone, I eat my dinner in zolitude, I am pleased to meet you, sare.”A cork popped and the champagne frothed into the stranger’s glass. Raising it to his lips, he said,“Prosit!”“Prosit!”responded the Baron, enthusiastically.“You know ze Deutsch, sare?”“I am safer in English, I confess.”“Ach, das ist goot, I vant for to practeese. Ve vill talk English.”“With all my heart,”said the stranger.“I, too, am alone, and I hold myself more than fortunate in making your acquaintance. It’s a devilish dull world when one can’t share a bottle—or a brace of them, for the matter of that.”“You know London?”asked the Baron.“I used to, and I daresay my memory will revive.”“I know it not, pairhaps you can inform. I haf gom, as I say, to-day.”“With pleasure,”said the stranger, readily.“In fact, if you are ever disengaged I may possibly be able to act as showman.”“Showman!”roared the Baron, thinking he had discovered a jest.“Ha, ha, ha! Goot, zehr goot!”The other looked a trifle astonished for an instant,[pg 70]and then as he sipped his champagne an expression of intense satisfaction came over his face.“I can put away my lantern,”he said to himself,—“I have found him.”“May I have the boldness to ask your name, sir?”he asked aloud.“Ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”that nobleman replied.“Yours, sare—may I dare?”“Francis Bunker, at your service, Baron.”“You are noble?”queried the Baron a little anxiously, for his prejudices on this point were strong.“According to your standard I believe I may say so. That’s to say, my family have borne arms for two hundred odd generations; twenty-five per cent of them have died of good living; and the most malicious have never accused us of brains. I myself may not be very typical, but I assure you it isn’t my ancestors’ fault.”The latter part of this explanation entirely puzzled the Baron. The first statement, though eminently satisfactory, was also a little bewildering.“Two hondred generations?”he asked, courteously.“Zat is a vary old family. All bore arms you say, Mistair Bonker?”“All,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely.“The first few bore tails as well.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“You are a fonny man I pairceive, vat you call clown, yes?”“What my friends call clown, and I call wit,”Mr Bunker corrected.“Vit! Ha, ha, ha!”roared the Baron, whose mind[pg 71]was now in an El Dorado of humour when jokes grew like daisies. His loneliness had disappeared as if by magic; as course succeeded course his contentment showed itself in a perpetually beaming smile: he ceased to worry even about his friend’s pedigree, convinced in his mind that manners so delightful and distinguished could only result from repeated quarterings and unoccupied forefathers. Yet by the time dessert arrived and he had again returned to his port, he began to feel an extreme curiosity to know more concerning Mr Bunker. He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive. Mr Bunker, for his part, had so far confined his confidences to his name.“My dear Bonker,”said the Baron at last—he had become quite familiar by this time—“vat make you in London? I fear you are bird of passage. Do you stay long?”Mr Bunker cracked a nut, looking very serious; then he leant on one elbow, glanced up at the ceiling pensively, and sighed.“I hope I do not ask vat I should not,”the Baron interposed, courteously.“My dear Baron, ask what you like,”replied Mr Bunker.“In a city full of strangers, or of friends who[pg 72]have forgotten me, you alone have my confidence. My story is a common one of youthful folly and present repentance, but such as it is, you are welcome to it.”The Baron gulped down half a glass of port and leaned forward sympathetically.“My father,”Mr Bunker continued with an air of half-sad reminiscence,“is one of the largest landowners and the head of one of the most ancient families in the north of England. I was his eldest son and heir. I am still, I have every reason to believe, his eldest son, but my heirship, I regret to say, is more doubtful. I spent a prodigal youth and a larger sum of money than my poor father approved of. He was a strict though a kind parent, and for the good of my health and the replenishment of the family coffers, which had been sadly drained by my extravagance, he sent me abroad. There I have led a roving life for the last six years, and at last, my wild oats sown, reaped, and gathered in (and a well-filled stackyard they made, I can assure you), I decided to return to England and become an ornament to respectable society. Like you, I arrived in London to-day, but only to find to my disgust that my family have gone to winter in Egypt. So you see that at present I am like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock and waiting, with what patience I can muster, for a boat to take me off.”“You mean,”inquired the Baron, anxiously,“that you vish to go to Egypt at vonce?”“I had thought of it; though there is a difficulty in the way, I admit.”“You vill not stay zen here?”[pg 73]“My dear Baron, why should I? I have neither friends nor——”He stopped abruptly.“I do not like to zink I shall lose your company so soon.”“I admit,”allowed Mr Bunker,“that this fortunate meeting tempts me to stay.”“Vy not?”said the Baron, cordially.“Can your fader not vait to see you?”“I hardly think he will worry about me, I confess.”“Zen stay, my goot Bonker!”“Unfortunately there is the same difficulty as stands in the way of my going to Egypt.”“And may I inquire vat zat is?”“To tell you the truth,”replied Mr Bunker, with an air of reluctant candour,“my funds are rather low. I had trusted to finding my father at home, but as he isn’t, why——”he shrugged his shoulders and threw himself back in his chair.The Baron seemed struck with an idea which he hesitated to express.“Shall we smoke?”his friend suggested.“Vaiter!”cried the Baron,“bring here two best cigars and two coffee!”“A liqueur, Baron?”“Ach, yah. Vat for you?”“A liqueur brandy suggests itself.”“Vaiter! and two brandy.”“And now,”said the Baron,“I haf an idea, Bonker.”[pg 74]CHAPTER II.The Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, as I have said, had a warm heart. He was, besides, alone in one hundred and twenty square miles of strangers and foreigners when he had happened upon this congenial spirit. He began in a tone of the most ingenuous friendliness—“I haf no friends here. My introdogtions zey are gone. Bot I haf moch money, and I vish a, vat you say?—showman, ha, ha, ha! You haf too leetle money and no friends and you can show. You show and I will loan you vat you vish. May I dare to suggest?”“My dear Baron!”“My goot Bonker! I am in airnest, I assure. Vy not? It is vun gentleman and anozzer.”“You are far too kind.”“It is to myself I am kind, zen. I vant a guide, a frient. It is a loan. Do not scruple. Ven your fader goms you can pay if you please. It is nozing to me.”“Well, my dear Baron,”said Mr Bunker, like a man persuaded against his will,“what can I say? I confess I might find a little difficulty in replenishing my purse without resorting to disagreeable means, and if you really wish my society, why——”“Zen it is a bairgain?”cried the Baron.“If you insist——”“I insist. Vaiter! Alzo two ozzer liqueur. Ve most drink to ze bairgain, Bonker.”They pledged each other cordially, and talked from[pg 75]that moment like old friends. The Baron was thoroughly pleased with himself, and Mr Bunker seemed no less gratified at his own good fortune. Half an hour went quickly by, and then the Baron exclaimed,“Let us do zomzing to-night, Bonker. I burn for to begin zis show of London.”“What would you care to do, Baron? It is rather late, I am afraid, to think of a theatre. What do you say to a music-hall?”“Music-hall? I haf seen zem at home. Damned amusing, das ist ze expression, yes?”“It is a perfect description.”“Bot,”continued the Baron, solemnly,“I must not begin vid ze vickedest.”“And yet,”replied his friend, persuasively,“even wickedness needs a beginning.”“Bot, if I begin I may not stop. Zomzing more qviet ze first night. Haf you a club?”Mr Bunker pondered for a moment, and a curious smile stole across his face. Then it vanished, and he answered readily,“Certainly, Baron, an excellent idea. I haven’t been to my club for so long that it never struck me. Let us come.”“Goot!”cried the Baron, rising with alacrity.They put on their coats (Mr Bunker’s, it may be remarked, being a handsome fur-lined garment), the porter hailed a cab, and the driver was ordered to take them to the Regent’s Club in Pall Mall. The Baron knew it by reputation as the most exclusive in London, and his opinion of his friend rose still higher.[pg 76]They joined a jingling string of other hansoms and sped swiftly through the exhilarating bustle of the streets. To the Baron it seemed as if a great change had come over the city since he wandered disconsolately before dinner. Carried swiftly to the music of the little bells through the sharp air and the London night that is brighter than day, with a friend by his side and a good dinner within, he marked the most astonishing difference. All the people seemed to talk and laugh, and for his own part he found it hard to keep his tongue still.“I know ze name of ze Regent’s,”he said;“vun club of ze best, is it not?”“The very best club, Baron.”“Zey are all noble?”“In many cases the receipts for their escutcheons are still in their pockets.”Though the precise significance of this explanation was not quite clear to the Baron, it sounded eminently satisfactory.“Zo?”he said.“I shall be moch interested to see zem.”As they entered the club the porter stared at them curiously, and even made a movement as though he would step out and address them; but Mr Bunker, wishing him a courteous good evening, walked briskly up to the hat-and-cloak racks in the hall. A young man had just hung up his hat, and as he was divesting himself of his coat, Mr Bunker quickly took the hat down, glanced at the name inside, and replaced it on its peg. Then he held out his hand and addressed the young man cordially.[pg 77]“Good evening, Transome, how are you?”said he, and, heedless of the look of surprise on the other’s face, he turned towards the Baron and added,“Let me introduce the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg—Mr Transome. The Baron has just come to England, and I thought he couldn’t begin better than by a visit to the Regent’s. Let us come into the smoking-room.”In a few minutes they were all on the best of terms. A certain perplexity, and almost shyness, that the young man showed at first, vanished rapidly before the Baron’s cordiality and Mr Bunker’s well-bred charm of manner.They were deeply engrossed in a discussion on the reigning sovereign of the Baron’s native land, a monarch of whose enlightened policy that nobleman spoke with pardonable pride, when two elderly gentlemen entered the room.“Who are these?”Mr Bunker whispered to Transome.“I know them very well, but I am always bad at names.”“Lord Fabrigas and General M’Dermott,”replied Transome.Instantly Mr Bunker rose and greeted the new-comers.“Good evening, Lord Fabrigas; good evening, General. You have just come in time to be introduced to the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, whom you doubtless know by reputation.”The Baron rose and bowed, and it struck him that elderly English gentlemen were singularly stiff and constrained in their manner. Mr Bunker, however, continued cheerfully,“We are just going to have a smoking concert. Will you begin, Baron?”[pg 78]“I know not English songs,”replied the Baron,“bot I should like moch to hear.”“You must join in the chorus, then.”“Certainly, Bonker. I haf a voice zat is considered—vat you call—deafening, yes?—in ze chorus.”Mr Bunker cleared his throat, and, just as the General was on the point of interposing a remark, struck up hastily; and for the first time in its long and honourable history the smoking-room of the Regent’s Club reechoed to a popular music-hall ditty.“They sometimes call ’em duckies, they sometimes call ’em pets,And sometimes they refer to ’em as dearsThey live on little matters that a gentleman forgets,In a little world of giggles and of tears;There are different varieties from which a man may choose,There are sorts and shapes and sizes without end,But the kind I’d pick myself is the kind you introduceBy the simple title of‘my lady friend.’”“Chorus, Baron!”And then he trolled in waltz time this edifying refrain—“My lady friend, my lady friend!Can’t you twig, dear boys,From the sound of the kissesShe isn’t my misses,She’s only my lady friend!”In a voice like a train going over a bridge the Baron chimed in—“My laty vrient, my laty vrient!Cannot you tvig, mine boy,Vrom ze sound of ze kiss,He is not my miss,He is only mine laty vrient!”[pg 79]“I am afraid,”said Mr Bunker, as they finished the chorus,“that I can’t remember any more. Now, General, it’s your turn.”“Sir,”replied that gallant officer, who had listened to this ditty in purple and petrified astonishment,“I don’t know who the devil you are, but I can tell you, you won’t remain a member of this club much longer if you come into it again in this state.”“I had forgotten,”said Mr Bunker, with even more than his usual politeness,“that such an admirable music-hall critic was listening to me. I must apologise for my poor effort.”Wishing him courteously good-night, he took the Baron by the arm and walked out. While that somewhat perplexed nobleman was struggling into his coat, his friend rapidly and dexterously converted all the silk hats he could see into the condition of collapsed opera hats, and then picked a small hand-bag off the floor. The Baron walked out through the door first, but Mr Bunker stopped for an instant opposite the hall-porter’s box, and crying,“Good night to you, sir!”hurled the bag through the glass, rushed after his friend, and in less time than it takes to tell they were tearing up Pall Mall in a hansom.For a few minutes both were silent; then the Baron said slowly,“I do not qvite onderstand.”“My dear Baron,”his friend explained gaily,“these practical jokes are very common in our clubs. They are quite part of our national life, you know, and I thought you ought to see everything.”[pg 80]The Baron said nothing, but he began to realise that he was indeed in a foreign country.CHAPTER III.“Vell, Bonker, vat show to-day?”said the Baron.Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.“What would you like?”said he.They were sitting in the Baron’s private room finishing one of the renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any adventure that might turn up.He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly,“I am in your hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing.”“Do you wish instruction or entertainment?”“Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining.”“You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that you wish entertaining experience[pg 81]from which a man of your philosophical temperament can draw a moral—afterwards.”“Ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“Excellent! You provide ze experiences—I draw ze moral.”“And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I’m afraid we need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being taken—by the hand—to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul’s Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of subsequent visits.”“Bot zese places—Tousaud, Tower, Paul’s—are zey not instrogtif?”“If you wish to learn that a great number of years ago a vast quantity of inconsequent events occurred, or that in an otherwise amusing enough world there are here and there collected so many roomfuls of cheerless articles, I can strongly recommend a visit to the Tower of London or the British Museum.”“In mine own gontry,”said the Baron, thoughtfully,“I can lairn zo moch.”“Then, my dear Baron, while you are here forget it all.”“And yet,”said the Baron, still thoughtfully,“somzing I should lairn here.”[pg 82]“Certainly; you will learn something of what goes on underneath a waistcoat and a little of the contents of a corset and petticoat. Also of the strange customs of this city and the excellence of British institutions.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron, who thought that if his friend had not actually made a jest, it was at least time for one to occur.“I see, I see. I draw ze moral, ha, ha!”“This morning,”Mr Bunker continued, reflectively,“we might—let me see—well, we might do a little shopping. To tell you the truth, Baron, my South African experiences have somewhat exhausted my wardrobe.”“Ach, zo. Cairtainly ve vill shop. Bot, Bonker, Soud Africa? Vas it not Soud America?”“Did I say Africa? America of course I meant. Well, let us shop if you have no objections: then we might have a little lunch, and afterwards visit the Park. For the evening, what do you say to a theatre?”“Goot!”cried the Baron.“Make it tzos.”Mr Bunker’s shopping turned out to be a pretty extensive operation.“Loan vat you please of money,”said his friend.“A gentleman should be dressed in agreement.”With now and then an apology for his extravagance, he took full advantage of the Baron’s generosity, and ordered such an assortment of garments that his tailor could hardly bow low enough to express his gratification.After an excellent lunch in the most expensive restaurant to be found, they walked arm-in-arm westwards along[pg 83]Piccadilly, Mr Bunker pointing out the various objects of historical or ephemeral interest to be seen in that thoroughfare, the Baron drinking in this information with the serious air of the distinguished traveller.“And now we come to the Park,”said Mr Bunker.“Guard your heart, Baron.”“Ha, ha, ha!”replied the Baron.“Zo instrogtion is feenished, and now goms entertainment, ha?”“With the moral always running through it, remember.”“I shall not forget.”The sunshine had brought out a great many carriages and a sprinkling of walkers along the railings. The two friends strolled among them, eyeing the women and stopping now and then to look back at a carriage.“I suppose,”said the Baron,“zat vile you haf been avay your frients have forgot you.”As he spoke a young man looked hard at Mr Bunker, and even made a movement as though he would stop and speak to him. Mr Bunker looked blandly through him and walked on.“Do you not know zat gentleman?”“Which gentleman?”“Ze young man zat looked so at you.”“Some young men have a way of staring here, Baron.”A few minutes later a lady in a passing carriage looked round sharply at them with an air of great surprise, and half bowed.“Surely,”exclaimed the Baron,“zat vas a frient of yours!”“I am not a friend of hers, then,”Mr Bunker replied[pg 84]with a laugh.“Her bow I think must have been aimed at you.”The Baron shook his head, and seemed to be drawing a moral.“Baron,”his friend exclaimed, suddenly,“let us go back; here comes one of our most popular phenomena, a London fog. We need not stay in the Park to observe it.”The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage in and out, and closed silently behind it again.“I like not zis,”said the Baron, with a shiver.By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his shoulder.In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and began to walk hastily back again.[pg 85]“Vat for zis?”said the Baron, in great astonishment.“We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise, Baron, for my absence of mind.”* * * * *The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,”he said to himself.“I might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.”CHAPTER IV.The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a second bottle; the Baron praised theentrées, and insisted on another helping. The frequent laughter arising from their table excited general remark throughout the room, and already the waiters were whispering to the other guests that this was a German nobleman of royal blood engaged in a diplomatic mission of importance, and his friend a ducal member of the English Cabinet, at present, for reasons of state, incognito.“Bonker!”exclaimed the Baron,“I am in zat frame of head I vant a romance, an adventure”(lowering his voice a little),“mit a beautiful lady, Bonker.”“It must be a romance, Baron?”[pg 86]“A novel, a story to tell to mine frients. In a strange city man expects strange zings.”“Well, I’ll do my best for you, but I confess the provision of romantic adventures is a little outside the programme we’ve arranged.”“Ha, ha! Ve shall see, ve shall see, Bonker!”They arrived at the Corinthian Theatre about the middle of the first act, for, as Mr Bunker explained, it is always well to produce a good first impression, and few more effective means can be devised than working one’s way to the middle of a line of stalls with the play already in progress.Hardly were they seated when the Baron drove his elbow into his friend’s ribs (draped for the night, it may be remarked, with one of the Baron’s spare dress-coats) and exclaimed in an excited whisper,“Next to you, Bonker! Ach, zehr hüpsch!”Even before this hint Mr Bunker had observed that the lady on the other side of him was possessed of exceptional attractions. For a little time he studied her out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed that the stall on the farther side of her was empty, that she once or twice looked round as though she expected somebody, and that she seemed not altogether unconscious of her new neighbours. He further observed that her face was of a type that is more usually engaged in attack than defence.Then he whispered,“Would you like to know her?”“Ach, yah!”replied the Baron, eagerly.“Bot—can you?”[pg 87]Mr Bunker smiled confidently. A few minutes later he happened to let his programme fall into her lap.“I beg your pardon,”he whispered, softly, and glanced into her eyes with a smile ready.His usual discernment had not failed him. She smiled, and instantly he produced his.A little later her opera-glasses happened to slip from her hand, and though they only slipped slowly, it was no doubt owing to his ready presence of mind that their fall was averted.This time their fingers happened to touch, and they smiled without an apology.He leant towards her, looking, however, at the play. They shared a laugh over a joke that she might have been excused for not understanding; presently a criticism of some situation escaped him inadvertently, and she smiled again; soon after she gave an exclamation and he answered sympathetically, and at the end of the act the curtain came down on an acquaintance already begun. As the lights were turned up, and here and there men began to go out, she again looked at the entrances in some apparent concern, either lest some one should not come in or lest some one should.“He is late,”said Mr Bunker, smiling.She gave a very enticing look of surprise, and consented to smile back before she coyly looked away again.“An erring husband, I presume.”She admitted that it was in fact a husband who had failed her.“But,”she added,“I’m afraid—I mean I expect he’ll[pg 88]come in after the next act. It’s so tiresome of him to disappoint me like this.”Mr Bunker expressed the deepest sympathy with her unfortunate predicament.“He has his ticket, of course?”But it seemed that she had both the tickets with her, an arrangement which he immediately denounced as likely to lead to difficulties when her husband arrived. He further, in the most obliging manner, suggested that he should take the ticket for the other seat to the booking office and leave instructions for its being given to the gentleman on his arrival. The lady gave him a curious little glance that seemed to imply a mixture of doubt as to his motives with confidence in his abilities, and then with many thanks agreed to his suggestion. Mr Bunker took the ticket and rose at once.“That I may be sure you are in good company while I am away,”said he,“permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”And the Baron promptly took his vacant seat.On his return Mr Bunker found his friend wreathed in smiles and engaged in the most animated conversation with the lady, and before the last act was over, he gathered from such scraps of conversation as reached his ears that Rudolph von Blitzenberg had little to learn in one department of a nobleman’s duties.“I wonder where my husband can be,”the lady whispered.“Ach, heed him not, fair lady,”replied the Baron.“Am I not instead of a hosband?”[pg 89]“I’m afraid you’re a very naughty man, Baron.”“Ven I am viz you,”the gallant Baron answered,“I forget myself all bot your charms.”These advances being made in the most dulcet tones of which the nobleman was master, and accompanied by the most enamoured expression, it is not surprising that the lady permitted herself to listen to them with perhaps too ready an ear. What Mr Bunker’s arrangement with the booking clerk had been was never quite clear, but certainly the erring husband failed to make his appearance at all, and at the last fall of the curtain she was easily persuaded to let the Baron escort her home.“I know I ought not, but if a husband deserts one so faithlessly, what can I do?”she said, with a very becoming little shrug of her shoulders and a captivating lift of her eyebrows.“Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort.”“But won’t it be troubling you?”“Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!”“Excuse me, Baron,”said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow;“if you will wait here at the door I shall send up a cab.”“Goot!”cried the Baron,“a zouzand zanks!”“I myself,”added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady,“shall say good night now. The best of luck, Baron!”In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.“Not too qvickly!”he added, in a stage aside.[pg 90]They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a marriage bell,—almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.“Why are we going down Whitehall?”the lady exclaimed, suddenly.“I know not,”replied the Baron, placidly.“Ask him where he is going!”she said.The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply,“All right, sir,”came back through the hole in the roof.“I seem to know that man’s voice,”the lady said.“He must have driven me before.”“To me all ze English speak ze same,”replied the Baron.“All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more reckless.“Can’t you catch the reins?”cried the lady, who had got into a terrible fright.The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady burst into tears.[pg 91]The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets, past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown wilderness of brick.“Oh, don’t let him murder me!”sobbed the lady.“Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and blitzen! Haf courage, dear!”“Oh dear, oh dear!”wailed the lady.“I shallneverdo it again!”They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was rubbing his head some yards in front.“Teufel!”exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet.“Ach, mine dearest vun, art thou hurt?”The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she burst into hysterical laughter.“Ach, zo,”said the Baron, much relieved,“zen vill I see ze cabman.”That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the sight of the driver’s face he started back in blank astonishment.“Bonker!”“It is I indeed, my dear Baron,”replied that gentleman,[pg 92]politely.“I must ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to your friend, I don’t know how I am to make my peace with her.”“Bot—bot vat means zis?”gasped the Baron.“I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required, besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady’s better acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear lady, can I assist you in any way?”Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative answer.“Where are we?”asked the lady, who hovered between fright and indignation.Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.“It would be rash to hazard an opinion,”he replied.“Well!”cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright.“Do you mean to say you’ve brought us here against our wills and probably got me intodreadfultrouble, and you don’t even know where we are?”Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.“Oneoughtto be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of those stars,”he replied;“but, to tell the truth, I don’t quite know which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely through ignorance, that I cannot direct you.”The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.“You’vehelped to get me into this mess,”she said, tartly.“What do you propose to do?”[pg 93]“My fairest——”“Don’t!”she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one another.“It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I’m afraid, is smashed beyond hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually arrive somewhere.”There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pass, they set out on foot. At last, after half an hour’s ramble through the solitudes of South London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way home, the lady’s indignation again gave way to fright.“WhatamI to do? WhatamI to do?”she wailed.“Oh, whatever will my husband say?”In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so infectious was his assurance, that, when at last they reached Eaton Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained,“My English, he is unsafe.”After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a dressing-gown.“Louisa!”he cried.“What the dev—where on earth have you been? The police are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is with you?”[pg 94]Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.“My dear sir,”he said,“we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night,”and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, assuring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.“So you have had your adventure, Baron,”he added, with a smile.For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful guffaw,“Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas pleasant vile it lasted!”
CHAPTER I.The Baron Rudolf von Blitzenberg sat by himself at a table in the dining-room of the Hôtel Mayonaise, which, as everybody knows, is the largest and most expensive in London. He was a young man of a florid and burly Teutonic type and the most ingenuous countenance. Being possessed of a curious and enterprising disposition, as well as the most ample means, he had left his ancestral castle in Bavaria to study for a few months the customs and politics of England. In the language he was already proficient, and he had promised himself an amusing as well as an instructive visit. But, although he had only arrived in London that morning, he was already beginning to feel an uncomfortable apprehension lest in both respects he should be disappointed. Though his introductions were the best with which the British Ambassador could supply him, they were only three or four in number,—for, not wishing to be hampered with too many acquaintances, he had rather chosen quality than quantity: and now, in the course of the afternoon, he had found to his chagrin that in every case the families were out of town. In fact, so far as he could learn, they were[pg 66]not even at their own country seats. One was abroad, another gone to the seaside to recover from the mumps, or a third paying a round of visits.The disappointment was sharp, he felt utterly at sea as to what he should do, and he was already beginning to experience the loneliness of a single mortal in a crowded hotel.As the frosty evening was setting in and the shops were being lit, he had strolled out into the streets in the vague hope of meeting some strange foreign adventure, or perhaps even happily lighting upon some half-forgotten diplomatic acquaintance. But he found the pavements crowded with a throng who took no notice of him at all, but seemed every man and most women of them to be pushing steadily, and generally silently, towards a million mysterious goals. Not that he could tell they were silent except by their set lips, for the noise of wheels and horses on so many hundreds of miles of streets, and the cries of busmen and vendors of evening papers, made such a hubbub that he felt before long in a maze. He lost his way four times, and was patronisingly set right by beneficent policemen; and at last, feeling like a man who has fallen off a precipice on to a soft place—none the worse but quite bewildered—he struggled back to his hotel. There he spun out his time by watching the people come and go, and at last dressed with extra deliberation.About eight o’clock he sat down to his solitary dinner. The great gilt and panelled room was full of diners and bustling waiters, but there was not a face the Baron had ever seen before. He was just finishing a plate of whitebait[pg 67]when he observed a stranger enter the room and stroll in a very self-possessed manner down the middle, glancing at the tables round him as though he was looking either for a friend or a desirable seat. This gentleman was tall, fair, and clean-shaved; he was dressed in a suit of well-fitting tweeds, and his air impressed the Baron as being natural and yet distinguished. At last his eye fell upon the Baron, who felt conscious of undergoing a quick, critical scrutiny. The table at which that nobleman sat was laid for two, and coming apparently to a sudden resolution, the good-looking stranger seated himself in the vacant chair. In an agreeable voice and with an unmistakably well-bred air he asked a waiter for the wine-list, and then, like a man with an excellent appetite, fell to upon the varioushors d’œuvres, the entire collection of which, in fact, he consumed in a wonderfully short space of time. The Baron, being himself no trifler with his victuals, regarded this feat with sympathetic approval, and began to feel a little less alone in the world. His naturally open disposition was warmed besides, owing to a slight misconception he had fallen into, perfectly excusable however in a foreigner. He thought he had read somewhere that port was the usual accompaniment to the first courses of an English dinner, and as his waiter had been somewhat dilatory in bringing him the more substantial items of the repast, he had already drunk three claret-glasses of this cheering wine. The chill recollections of his sixteen quarterings and the exclusiveness he had determined to maintain as becoming to his rank were already melting, and he met the stranger’s[pg 68]eye with what for the life of him he could not help being a cordial look.Hisvis-à-viscaught the glance, smiled back, and immediately asked, with the most charming politeness,“Do you care, sir, to split a bottle of champagne?”“To—er—shplid?”said the Baron, with a disappointed consciousness of having been put at a loss in his English by the very first man who had spoken to him.“I beg your pardon,—I am afraid I was unintelligibly idiomatic. To divide, I should say, you consuming one-half, I the other. Am I clear, sir?”For a moment the Baron was a little taken aback, and then recollecting that the dining habits of the English were still new to him, he concluded that the suggestion was probably a customary act of courtesy. He had already come to the conclusion that the gentleman must be a person of rank, and he replied affably,“Yah—zat is, vid pleasure. Zanks, very.”“The pleasure is mine,”said the stranger—“and half the bottle,”he added, smiling.The Baron, whose perception of humour had been abnormally increased by this time, laughed hilariously at the infection of his new acquaintance’s smile.“Goot, goot!”he cried.“Ach, yah, zo.”“Am I right, sir, in supposing that, despite the perfection of your English accent, I cannot be fortunate enough to claim you as a countryman?”asked the stranger.The Baron’s resolutions of reticence had vanished altogether before such unexpected and (he could not[pg 69]but think) un-English friendliness. He unburdened his heart with a rush.“You have ze right. I am Deutsch. I have gom to England zis day for to lairn and to amuse myself. But mein, vat you call?—introdogtions zey are not inside, zat is zey are from off. Not von, all, every single gone to ze gontry or to abroad. I am alone, I eat my dinner in zolitude, I am pleased to meet you, sare.”A cork popped and the champagne frothed into the stranger’s glass. Raising it to his lips, he said,“Prosit!”“Prosit!”responded the Baron, enthusiastically.“You know ze Deutsch, sare?”“I am safer in English, I confess.”“Ach, das ist goot, I vant for to practeese. Ve vill talk English.”“With all my heart,”said the stranger.“I, too, am alone, and I hold myself more than fortunate in making your acquaintance. It’s a devilish dull world when one can’t share a bottle—or a brace of them, for the matter of that.”“You know London?”asked the Baron.“I used to, and I daresay my memory will revive.”“I know it not, pairhaps you can inform. I haf gom, as I say, to-day.”“With pleasure,”said the stranger, readily.“In fact, if you are ever disengaged I may possibly be able to act as showman.”“Showman!”roared the Baron, thinking he had discovered a jest.“Ha, ha, ha! Goot, zehr goot!”The other looked a trifle astonished for an instant,[pg 70]and then as he sipped his champagne an expression of intense satisfaction came over his face.“I can put away my lantern,”he said to himself,—“I have found him.”“May I have the boldness to ask your name, sir?”he asked aloud.“Ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”that nobleman replied.“Yours, sare—may I dare?”“Francis Bunker, at your service, Baron.”“You are noble?”queried the Baron a little anxiously, for his prejudices on this point were strong.“According to your standard I believe I may say so. That’s to say, my family have borne arms for two hundred odd generations; twenty-five per cent of them have died of good living; and the most malicious have never accused us of brains. I myself may not be very typical, but I assure you it isn’t my ancestors’ fault.”The latter part of this explanation entirely puzzled the Baron. The first statement, though eminently satisfactory, was also a little bewildering.“Two hondred generations?”he asked, courteously.“Zat is a vary old family. All bore arms you say, Mistair Bonker?”“All,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely.“The first few bore tails as well.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“You are a fonny man I pairceive, vat you call clown, yes?”“What my friends call clown, and I call wit,”Mr Bunker corrected.“Vit! Ha, ha, ha!”roared the Baron, whose mind[pg 71]was now in an El Dorado of humour when jokes grew like daisies. His loneliness had disappeared as if by magic; as course succeeded course his contentment showed itself in a perpetually beaming smile: he ceased to worry even about his friend’s pedigree, convinced in his mind that manners so delightful and distinguished could only result from repeated quarterings and unoccupied forefathers. Yet by the time dessert arrived and he had again returned to his port, he began to feel an extreme curiosity to know more concerning Mr Bunker. He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive. Mr Bunker, for his part, had so far confined his confidences to his name.“My dear Bonker,”said the Baron at last—he had become quite familiar by this time—“vat make you in London? I fear you are bird of passage. Do you stay long?”Mr Bunker cracked a nut, looking very serious; then he leant on one elbow, glanced up at the ceiling pensively, and sighed.“I hope I do not ask vat I should not,”the Baron interposed, courteously.“My dear Baron, ask what you like,”replied Mr Bunker.“In a city full of strangers, or of friends who[pg 72]have forgotten me, you alone have my confidence. My story is a common one of youthful folly and present repentance, but such as it is, you are welcome to it.”The Baron gulped down half a glass of port and leaned forward sympathetically.“My father,”Mr Bunker continued with an air of half-sad reminiscence,“is one of the largest landowners and the head of one of the most ancient families in the north of England. I was his eldest son and heir. I am still, I have every reason to believe, his eldest son, but my heirship, I regret to say, is more doubtful. I spent a prodigal youth and a larger sum of money than my poor father approved of. He was a strict though a kind parent, and for the good of my health and the replenishment of the family coffers, which had been sadly drained by my extravagance, he sent me abroad. There I have led a roving life for the last six years, and at last, my wild oats sown, reaped, and gathered in (and a well-filled stackyard they made, I can assure you), I decided to return to England and become an ornament to respectable society. Like you, I arrived in London to-day, but only to find to my disgust that my family have gone to winter in Egypt. So you see that at present I am like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock and waiting, with what patience I can muster, for a boat to take me off.”“You mean,”inquired the Baron, anxiously,“that you vish to go to Egypt at vonce?”“I had thought of it; though there is a difficulty in the way, I admit.”“You vill not stay zen here?”[pg 73]“My dear Baron, why should I? I have neither friends nor——”He stopped abruptly.“I do not like to zink I shall lose your company so soon.”“I admit,”allowed Mr Bunker,“that this fortunate meeting tempts me to stay.”“Vy not?”said the Baron, cordially.“Can your fader not vait to see you?”“I hardly think he will worry about me, I confess.”“Zen stay, my goot Bonker!”“Unfortunately there is the same difficulty as stands in the way of my going to Egypt.”“And may I inquire vat zat is?”“To tell you the truth,”replied Mr Bunker, with an air of reluctant candour,“my funds are rather low. I had trusted to finding my father at home, but as he isn’t, why——”he shrugged his shoulders and threw himself back in his chair.The Baron seemed struck with an idea which he hesitated to express.“Shall we smoke?”his friend suggested.“Vaiter!”cried the Baron,“bring here two best cigars and two coffee!”“A liqueur, Baron?”“Ach, yah. Vat for you?”“A liqueur brandy suggests itself.”“Vaiter! and two brandy.”“And now,”said the Baron,“I haf an idea, Bonker.”
The Baron Rudolf von Blitzenberg sat by himself at a table in the dining-room of the Hôtel Mayonaise, which, as everybody knows, is the largest and most expensive in London. He was a young man of a florid and burly Teutonic type and the most ingenuous countenance. Being possessed of a curious and enterprising disposition, as well as the most ample means, he had left his ancestral castle in Bavaria to study for a few months the customs and politics of England. In the language he was already proficient, and he had promised himself an amusing as well as an instructive visit. But, although he had only arrived in London that morning, he was already beginning to feel an uncomfortable apprehension lest in both respects he should be disappointed. Though his introductions were the best with which the British Ambassador could supply him, they were only three or four in number,—for, not wishing to be hampered with too many acquaintances, he had rather chosen quality than quantity: and now, in the course of the afternoon, he had found to his chagrin that in every case the families were out of town. In fact, so far as he could learn, they were[pg 66]not even at their own country seats. One was abroad, another gone to the seaside to recover from the mumps, or a third paying a round of visits.
The disappointment was sharp, he felt utterly at sea as to what he should do, and he was already beginning to experience the loneliness of a single mortal in a crowded hotel.
As the frosty evening was setting in and the shops were being lit, he had strolled out into the streets in the vague hope of meeting some strange foreign adventure, or perhaps even happily lighting upon some half-forgotten diplomatic acquaintance. But he found the pavements crowded with a throng who took no notice of him at all, but seemed every man and most women of them to be pushing steadily, and generally silently, towards a million mysterious goals. Not that he could tell they were silent except by their set lips, for the noise of wheels and horses on so many hundreds of miles of streets, and the cries of busmen and vendors of evening papers, made such a hubbub that he felt before long in a maze. He lost his way four times, and was patronisingly set right by beneficent policemen; and at last, feeling like a man who has fallen off a precipice on to a soft place—none the worse but quite bewildered—he struggled back to his hotel. There he spun out his time by watching the people come and go, and at last dressed with extra deliberation.
About eight o’clock he sat down to his solitary dinner. The great gilt and panelled room was full of diners and bustling waiters, but there was not a face the Baron had ever seen before. He was just finishing a plate of whitebait[pg 67]when he observed a stranger enter the room and stroll in a very self-possessed manner down the middle, glancing at the tables round him as though he was looking either for a friend or a desirable seat. This gentleman was tall, fair, and clean-shaved; he was dressed in a suit of well-fitting tweeds, and his air impressed the Baron as being natural and yet distinguished. At last his eye fell upon the Baron, who felt conscious of undergoing a quick, critical scrutiny. The table at which that nobleman sat was laid for two, and coming apparently to a sudden resolution, the good-looking stranger seated himself in the vacant chair. In an agreeable voice and with an unmistakably well-bred air he asked a waiter for the wine-list, and then, like a man with an excellent appetite, fell to upon the varioushors d’œuvres, the entire collection of which, in fact, he consumed in a wonderfully short space of time. The Baron, being himself no trifler with his victuals, regarded this feat with sympathetic approval, and began to feel a little less alone in the world. His naturally open disposition was warmed besides, owing to a slight misconception he had fallen into, perfectly excusable however in a foreigner. He thought he had read somewhere that port was the usual accompaniment to the first courses of an English dinner, and as his waiter had been somewhat dilatory in bringing him the more substantial items of the repast, he had already drunk three claret-glasses of this cheering wine. The chill recollections of his sixteen quarterings and the exclusiveness he had determined to maintain as becoming to his rank were already melting, and he met the stranger’s[pg 68]eye with what for the life of him he could not help being a cordial look.
Hisvis-à-viscaught the glance, smiled back, and immediately asked, with the most charming politeness,“Do you care, sir, to split a bottle of champagne?”
“To—er—shplid?”said the Baron, with a disappointed consciousness of having been put at a loss in his English by the very first man who had spoken to him.
“I beg your pardon,—I am afraid I was unintelligibly idiomatic. To divide, I should say, you consuming one-half, I the other. Am I clear, sir?”
For a moment the Baron was a little taken aback, and then recollecting that the dining habits of the English were still new to him, he concluded that the suggestion was probably a customary act of courtesy. He had already come to the conclusion that the gentleman must be a person of rank, and he replied affably,“Yah—zat is, vid pleasure. Zanks, very.”
“The pleasure is mine,”said the stranger—“and half the bottle,”he added, smiling.
The Baron, whose perception of humour had been abnormally increased by this time, laughed hilariously at the infection of his new acquaintance’s smile.
“Goot, goot!”he cried.“Ach, yah, zo.”
“Am I right, sir, in supposing that, despite the perfection of your English accent, I cannot be fortunate enough to claim you as a countryman?”asked the stranger.
The Baron’s resolutions of reticence had vanished altogether before such unexpected and (he could not[pg 69]but think) un-English friendliness. He unburdened his heart with a rush.
“You have ze right. I am Deutsch. I have gom to England zis day for to lairn and to amuse myself. But mein, vat you call?—introdogtions zey are not inside, zat is zey are from off. Not von, all, every single gone to ze gontry or to abroad. I am alone, I eat my dinner in zolitude, I am pleased to meet you, sare.”
A cork popped and the champagne frothed into the stranger’s glass. Raising it to his lips, he said,“Prosit!”
“Prosit!”responded the Baron, enthusiastically.“You know ze Deutsch, sare?”
“I am safer in English, I confess.”
“Ach, das ist goot, I vant for to practeese. Ve vill talk English.”
“With all my heart,”said the stranger.“I, too, am alone, and I hold myself more than fortunate in making your acquaintance. It’s a devilish dull world when one can’t share a bottle—or a brace of them, for the matter of that.”
“You know London?”asked the Baron.
“I used to, and I daresay my memory will revive.”
“I know it not, pairhaps you can inform. I haf gom, as I say, to-day.”
“With pleasure,”said the stranger, readily.“In fact, if you are ever disengaged I may possibly be able to act as showman.”
“Showman!”roared the Baron, thinking he had discovered a jest.“Ha, ha, ha! Goot, zehr goot!”
The other looked a trifle astonished for an instant,[pg 70]and then as he sipped his champagne an expression of intense satisfaction came over his face.
“I can put away my lantern,”he said to himself,—“I have found him.”
“May I have the boldness to ask your name, sir?”he asked aloud.
“Ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg,”that nobleman replied.“Yours, sare—may I dare?”
“Francis Bunker, at your service, Baron.”
“You are noble?”queried the Baron a little anxiously, for his prejudices on this point were strong.
“According to your standard I believe I may say so. That’s to say, my family have borne arms for two hundred odd generations; twenty-five per cent of them have died of good living; and the most malicious have never accused us of brains. I myself may not be very typical, but I assure you it isn’t my ancestors’ fault.”
The latter part of this explanation entirely puzzled the Baron. The first statement, though eminently satisfactory, was also a little bewildering.
“Two hondred generations?”he asked, courteously.“Zat is a vary old family. All bore arms you say, Mistair Bonker?”
“All,”replied Mr Bunker, gravely.“The first few bore tails as well.”
“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“You are a fonny man I pairceive, vat you call clown, yes?”
“What my friends call clown, and I call wit,”Mr Bunker corrected.
“Vit! Ha, ha, ha!”roared the Baron, whose mind[pg 71]was now in an El Dorado of humour when jokes grew like daisies. His loneliness had disappeared as if by magic; as course succeeded course his contentment showed itself in a perpetually beaming smile: he ceased to worry even about his friend’s pedigree, convinced in his mind that manners so delightful and distinguished could only result from repeated quarterings and unoccupied forefathers. Yet by the time dessert arrived and he had again returned to his port, he began to feel an extreme curiosity to know more concerning Mr Bunker. He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive. Mr Bunker, for his part, had so far confined his confidences to his name.
“My dear Bonker,”said the Baron at last—he had become quite familiar by this time—“vat make you in London? I fear you are bird of passage. Do you stay long?”
Mr Bunker cracked a nut, looking very serious; then he leant on one elbow, glanced up at the ceiling pensively, and sighed.
“I hope I do not ask vat I should not,”the Baron interposed, courteously.
“My dear Baron, ask what you like,”replied Mr Bunker.“In a city full of strangers, or of friends who[pg 72]have forgotten me, you alone have my confidence. My story is a common one of youthful folly and present repentance, but such as it is, you are welcome to it.”
The Baron gulped down half a glass of port and leaned forward sympathetically.
“My father,”Mr Bunker continued with an air of half-sad reminiscence,“is one of the largest landowners and the head of one of the most ancient families in the north of England. I was his eldest son and heir. I am still, I have every reason to believe, his eldest son, but my heirship, I regret to say, is more doubtful. I spent a prodigal youth and a larger sum of money than my poor father approved of. He was a strict though a kind parent, and for the good of my health and the replenishment of the family coffers, which had been sadly drained by my extravagance, he sent me abroad. There I have led a roving life for the last six years, and at last, my wild oats sown, reaped, and gathered in (and a well-filled stackyard they made, I can assure you), I decided to return to England and become an ornament to respectable society. Like you, I arrived in London to-day, but only to find to my disgust that my family have gone to winter in Egypt. So you see that at present I am like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock and waiting, with what patience I can muster, for a boat to take me off.”
“You mean,”inquired the Baron, anxiously,“that you vish to go to Egypt at vonce?”
“I had thought of it; though there is a difficulty in the way, I admit.”
“You vill not stay zen here?”[pg 73]“My dear Baron, why should I? I have neither friends nor——”
He stopped abruptly.
“I do not like to zink I shall lose your company so soon.”
“I admit,”allowed Mr Bunker,“that this fortunate meeting tempts me to stay.”
“Vy not?”said the Baron, cordially.“Can your fader not vait to see you?”
“I hardly think he will worry about me, I confess.”
“Zen stay, my goot Bonker!”
“Unfortunately there is the same difficulty as stands in the way of my going to Egypt.”
“And may I inquire vat zat is?”
“To tell you the truth,”replied Mr Bunker, with an air of reluctant candour,“my funds are rather low. I had trusted to finding my father at home, but as he isn’t, why——”he shrugged his shoulders and threw himself back in his chair.
The Baron seemed struck with an idea which he hesitated to express.
“Shall we smoke?”his friend suggested.
“Vaiter!”cried the Baron,“bring here two best cigars and two coffee!”
“A liqueur, Baron?”
“Ach, yah. Vat for you?”
“A liqueur brandy suggests itself.”
“Vaiter! and two brandy.”
“And now,”said the Baron,“I haf an idea, Bonker.”
[pg 74]CHAPTER II.The Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, as I have said, had a warm heart. He was, besides, alone in one hundred and twenty square miles of strangers and foreigners when he had happened upon this congenial spirit. He began in a tone of the most ingenuous friendliness—“I haf no friends here. My introdogtions zey are gone. Bot I haf moch money, and I vish a, vat you say?—showman, ha, ha, ha! You haf too leetle money and no friends and you can show. You show and I will loan you vat you vish. May I dare to suggest?”“My dear Baron!”“My goot Bonker! I am in airnest, I assure. Vy not? It is vun gentleman and anozzer.”“You are far too kind.”“It is to myself I am kind, zen. I vant a guide, a frient. It is a loan. Do not scruple. Ven your fader goms you can pay if you please. It is nozing to me.”“Well, my dear Baron,”said Mr Bunker, like a man persuaded against his will,“what can I say? I confess I might find a little difficulty in replenishing my purse without resorting to disagreeable means, and if you really wish my society, why——”“Zen it is a bairgain?”cried the Baron.“If you insist——”“I insist. Vaiter! Alzo two ozzer liqueur. Ve most drink to ze bairgain, Bonker.”They pledged each other cordially, and talked from[pg 75]that moment like old friends. The Baron was thoroughly pleased with himself, and Mr Bunker seemed no less gratified at his own good fortune. Half an hour went quickly by, and then the Baron exclaimed,“Let us do zomzing to-night, Bonker. I burn for to begin zis show of London.”“What would you care to do, Baron? It is rather late, I am afraid, to think of a theatre. What do you say to a music-hall?”“Music-hall? I haf seen zem at home. Damned amusing, das ist ze expression, yes?”“It is a perfect description.”“Bot,”continued the Baron, solemnly,“I must not begin vid ze vickedest.”“And yet,”replied his friend, persuasively,“even wickedness needs a beginning.”“Bot, if I begin I may not stop. Zomzing more qviet ze first night. Haf you a club?”Mr Bunker pondered for a moment, and a curious smile stole across his face. Then it vanished, and he answered readily,“Certainly, Baron, an excellent idea. I haven’t been to my club for so long that it never struck me. Let us come.”“Goot!”cried the Baron, rising with alacrity.They put on their coats (Mr Bunker’s, it may be remarked, being a handsome fur-lined garment), the porter hailed a cab, and the driver was ordered to take them to the Regent’s Club in Pall Mall. The Baron knew it by reputation as the most exclusive in London, and his opinion of his friend rose still higher.[pg 76]They joined a jingling string of other hansoms and sped swiftly through the exhilarating bustle of the streets. To the Baron it seemed as if a great change had come over the city since he wandered disconsolately before dinner. Carried swiftly to the music of the little bells through the sharp air and the London night that is brighter than day, with a friend by his side and a good dinner within, he marked the most astonishing difference. All the people seemed to talk and laugh, and for his own part he found it hard to keep his tongue still.“I know ze name of ze Regent’s,”he said;“vun club of ze best, is it not?”“The very best club, Baron.”“Zey are all noble?”“In many cases the receipts for their escutcheons are still in their pockets.”Though the precise significance of this explanation was not quite clear to the Baron, it sounded eminently satisfactory.“Zo?”he said.“I shall be moch interested to see zem.”As they entered the club the porter stared at them curiously, and even made a movement as though he would step out and address them; but Mr Bunker, wishing him a courteous good evening, walked briskly up to the hat-and-cloak racks in the hall. A young man had just hung up his hat, and as he was divesting himself of his coat, Mr Bunker quickly took the hat down, glanced at the name inside, and replaced it on its peg. Then he held out his hand and addressed the young man cordially.[pg 77]“Good evening, Transome, how are you?”said he, and, heedless of the look of surprise on the other’s face, he turned towards the Baron and added,“Let me introduce the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg—Mr Transome. The Baron has just come to England, and I thought he couldn’t begin better than by a visit to the Regent’s. Let us come into the smoking-room.”In a few minutes they were all on the best of terms. A certain perplexity, and almost shyness, that the young man showed at first, vanished rapidly before the Baron’s cordiality and Mr Bunker’s well-bred charm of manner.They were deeply engrossed in a discussion on the reigning sovereign of the Baron’s native land, a monarch of whose enlightened policy that nobleman spoke with pardonable pride, when two elderly gentlemen entered the room.“Who are these?”Mr Bunker whispered to Transome.“I know them very well, but I am always bad at names.”“Lord Fabrigas and General M’Dermott,”replied Transome.Instantly Mr Bunker rose and greeted the new-comers.“Good evening, Lord Fabrigas; good evening, General. You have just come in time to be introduced to the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, whom you doubtless know by reputation.”The Baron rose and bowed, and it struck him that elderly English gentlemen were singularly stiff and constrained in their manner. Mr Bunker, however, continued cheerfully,“We are just going to have a smoking concert. Will you begin, Baron?”[pg 78]“I know not English songs,”replied the Baron,“bot I should like moch to hear.”“You must join in the chorus, then.”“Certainly, Bonker. I haf a voice zat is considered—vat you call—deafening, yes?—in ze chorus.”Mr Bunker cleared his throat, and, just as the General was on the point of interposing a remark, struck up hastily; and for the first time in its long and honourable history the smoking-room of the Regent’s Club reechoed to a popular music-hall ditty.“They sometimes call ’em duckies, they sometimes call ’em pets,And sometimes they refer to ’em as dearsThey live on little matters that a gentleman forgets,In a little world of giggles and of tears;There are different varieties from which a man may choose,There are sorts and shapes and sizes without end,But the kind I’d pick myself is the kind you introduceBy the simple title of‘my lady friend.’”“Chorus, Baron!”And then he trolled in waltz time this edifying refrain—“My lady friend, my lady friend!Can’t you twig, dear boys,From the sound of the kissesShe isn’t my misses,She’s only my lady friend!”In a voice like a train going over a bridge the Baron chimed in—“My laty vrient, my laty vrient!Cannot you tvig, mine boy,Vrom ze sound of ze kiss,He is not my miss,He is only mine laty vrient!”[pg 79]“I am afraid,”said Mr Bunker, as they finished the chorus,“that I can’t remember any more. Now, General, it’s your turn.”“Sir,”replied that gallant officer, who had listened to this ditty in purple and petrified astonishment,“I don’t know who the devil you are, but I can tell you, you won’t remain a member of this club much longer if you come into it again in this state.”“I had forgotten,”said Mr Bunker, with even more than his usual politeness,“that such an admirable music-hall critic was listening to me. I must apologise for my poor effort.”Wishing him courteously good-night, he took the Baron by the arm and walked out. While that somewhat perplexed nobleman was struggling into his coat, his friend rapidly and dexterously converted all the silk hats he could see into the condition of collapsed opera hats, and then picked a small hand-bag off the floor. The Baron walked out through the door first, but Mr Bunker stopped for an instant opposite the hall-porter’s box, and crying,“Good night to you, sir!”hurled the bag through the glass, rushed after his friend, and in less time than it takes to tell they were tearing up Pall Mall in a hansom.For a few minutes both were silent; then the Baron said slowly,“I do not qvite onderstand.”“My dear Baron,”his friend explained gaily,“these practical jokes are very common in our clubs. They are quite part of our national life, you know, and I thought you ought to see everything.”[pg 80]The Baron said nothing, but he began to realise that he was indeed in a foreign country.
The Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, as I have said, had a warm heart. He was, besides, alone in one hundred and twenty square miles of strangers and foreigners when he had happened upon this congenial spirit. He began in a tone of the most ingenuous friendliness—
“I haf no friends here. My introdogtions zey are gone. Bot I haf moch money, and I vish a, vat you say?—showman, ha, ha, ha! You haf too leetle money and no friends and you can show. You show and I will loan you vat you vish. May I dare to suggest?”
“My dear Baron!”
“My goot Bonker! I am in airnest, I assure. Vy not? It is vun gentleman and anozzer.”
“You are far too kind.”
“It is to myself I am kind, zen. I vant a guide, a frient. It is a loan. Do not scruple. Ven your fader goms you can pay if you please. It is nozing to me.”
“Well, my dear Baron,”said Mr Bunker, like a man persuaded against his will,“what can I say? I confess I might find a little difficulty in replenishing my purse without resorting to disagreeable means, and if you really wish my society, why——”
“Zen it is a bairgain?”cried the Baron.
“If you insist——”
“I insist. Vaiter! Alzo two ozzer liqueur. Ve most drink to ze bairgain, Bonker.”
They pledged each other cordially, and talked from[pg 75]that moment like old friends. The Baron was thoroughly pleased with himself, and Mr Bunker seemed no less gratified at his own good fortune. Half an hour went quickly by, and then the Baron exclaimed,“Let us do zomzing to-night, Bonker. I burn for to begin zis show of London.”
“What would you care to do, Baron? It is rather late, I am afraid, to think of a theatre. What do you say to a music-hall?”
“Music-hall? I haf seen zem at home. Damned amusing, das ist ze expression, yes?”
“It is a perfect description.”
“Bot,”continued the Baron, solemnly,“I must not begin vid ze vickedest.”
“And yet,”replied his friend, persuasively,“even wickedness needs a beginning.”
“Bot, if I begin I may not stop. Zomzing more qviet ze first night. Haf you a club?”
Mr Bunker pondered for a moment, and a curious smile stole across his face. Then it vanished, and he answered readily,“Certainly, Baron, an excellent idea. I haven’t been to my club for so long that it never struck me. Let us come.”
“Goot!”cried the Baron, rising with alacrity.
They put on their coats (Mr Bunker’s, it may be remarked, being a handsome fur-lined garment), the porter hailed a cab, and the driver was ordered to take them to the Regent’s Club in Pall Mall. The Baron knew it by reputation as the most exclusive in London, and his opinion of his friend rose still higher.
They joined a jingling string of other hansoms and sped swiftly through the exhilarating bustle of the streets. To the Baron it seemed as if a great change had come over the city since he wandered disconsolately before dinner. Carried swiftly to the music of the little bells through the sharp air and the London night that is brighter than day, with a friend by his side and a good dinner within, he marked the most astonishing difference. All the people seemed to talk and laugh, and for his own part he found it hard to keep his tongue still.
“I know ze name of ze Regent’s,”he said;“vun club of ze best, is it not?”
“The very best club, Baron.”
“Zey are all noble?”
“In many cases the receipts for their escutcheons are still in their pockets.”
Though the precise significance of this explanation was not quite clear to the Baron, it sounded eminently satisfactory.
“Zo?”he said.“I shall be moch interested to see zem.”
As they entered the club the porter stared at them curiously, and even made a movement as though he would step out and address them; but Mr Bunker, wishing him a courteous good evening, walked briskly up to the hat-and-cloak racks in the hall. A young man had just hung up his hat, and as he was divesting himself of his coat, Mr Bunker quickly took the hat down, glanced at the name inside, and replaced it on its peg. Then he held out his hand and addressed the young man cordially.
“Good evening, Transome, how are you?”said he, and, heedless of the look of surprise on the other’s face, he turned towards the Baron and added,“Let me introduce the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg—Mr Transome. The Baron has just come to England, and I thought he couldn’t begin better than by a visit to the Regent’s. Let us come into the smoking-room.”
In a few minutes they were all on the best of terms. A certain perplexity, and almost shyness, that the young man showed at first, vanished rapidly before the Baron’s cordiality and Mr Bunker’s well-bred charm of manner.
They were deeply engrossed in a discussion on the reigning sovereign of the Baron’s native land, a monarch of whose enlightened policy that nobleman spoke with pardonable pride, when two elderly gentlemen entered the room.
“Who are these?”Mr Bunker whispered to Transome.“I know them very well, but I am always bad at names.”
“Lord Fabrigas and General M’Dermott,”replied Transome.
Instantly Mr Bunker rose and greeted the new-comers.
“Good evening, Lord Fabrigas; good evening, General. You have just come in time to be introduced to the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg, whom you doubtless know by reputation.”
The Baron rose and bowed, and it struck him that elderly English gentlemen were singularly stiff and constrained in their manner. Mr Bunker, however, continued cheerfully,“We are just going to have a smoking concert. Will you begin, Baron?”
“I know not English songs,”replied the Baron,“bot I should like moch to hear.”
“You must join in the chorus, then.”
“Certainly, Bonker. I haf a voice zat is considered—vat you call—deafening, yes?—in ze chorus.”
Mr Bunker cleared his throat, and, just as the General was on the point of interposing a remark, struck up hastily; and for the first time in its long and honourable history the smoking-room of the Regent’s Club reechoed to a popular music-hall ditty.
“They sometimes call ’em duckies, they sometimes call ’em pets,And sometimes they refer to ’em as dearsThey live on little matters that a gentleman forgets,In a little world of giggles and of tears;There are different varieties from which a man may choose,There are sorts and shapes and sizes without end,But the kind I’d pick myself is the kind you introduceBy the simple title of‘my lady friend.’”
“They sometimes call ’em duckies, they sometimes call ’em pets,
And sometimes they refer to ’em as dears
They live on little matters that a gentleman forgets,
In a little world of giggles and of tears;
There are different varieties from which a man may choose,
There are sorts and shapes and sizes without end,
But the kind I’d pick myself is the kind you introduce
By the simple title of‘my lady friend.’”
“Chorus, Baron!”And then he trolled in waltz time this edifying refrain—
“My lady friend, my lady friend!Can’t you twig, dear boys,From the sound of the kissesShe isn’t my misses,She’s only my lady friend!”
“My lady friend, my lady friend!
Can’t you twig, dear boys,
From the sound of the kisses
She isn’t my misses,
She’s only my lady friend!”
In a voice like a train going over a bridge the Baron chimed in—
“My laty vrient, my laty vrient!Cannot you tvig, mine boy,Vrom ze sound of ze kiss,He is not my miss,He is only mine laty vrient!”
“My laty vrient, my laty vrient!
Cannot you tvig, mine boy,
Vrom ze sound of ze kiss,
He is not my miss,
He is only mine laty vrient!”
“I am afraid,”said Mr Bunker, as they finished the chorus,“that I can’t remember any more. Now, General, it’s your turn.”
“Sir,”replied that gallant officer, who had listened to this ditty in purple and petrified astonishment,“I don’t know who the devil you are, but I can tell you, you won’t remain a member of this club much longer if you come into it again in this state.”
“I had forgotten,”said Mr Bunker, with even more than his usual politeness,“that such an admirable music-hall critic was listening to me. I must apologise for my poor effort.”
Wishing him courteously good-night, he took the Baron by the arm and walked out. While that somewhat perplexed nobleman was struggling into his coat, his friend rapidly and dexterously converted all the silk hats he could see into the condition of collapsed opera hats, and then picked a small hand-bag off the floor. The Baron walked out through the door first, but Mr Bunker stopped for an instant opposite the hall-porter’s box, and crying,“Good night to you, sir!”hurled the bag through the glass, rushed after his friend, and in less time than it takes to tell they were tearing up Pall Mall in a hansom.
For a few minutes both were silent; then the Baron said slowly,“I do not qvite onderstand.”
“My dear Baron,”his friend explained gaily,“these practical jokes are very common in our clubs. They are quite part of our national life, you know, and I thought you ought to see everything.”
The Baron said nothing, but he began to realise that he was indeed in a foreign country.
CHAPTER III.“Vell, Bonker, vat show to-day?”said the Baron.Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.“What would you like?”said he.They were sitting in the Baron’s private room finishing one of the renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any adventure that might turn up.He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly,“I am in your hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing.”“Do you wish instruction or entertainment?”“Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining.”“You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that you wish entertaining experience[pg 81]from which a man of your philosophical temperament can draw a moral—afterwards.”“Ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“Excellent! You provide ze experiences—I draw ze moral.”“And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I’m afraid we need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being taken—by the hand—to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul’s Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of subsequent visits.”“Bot zese places—Tousaud, Tower, Paul’s—are zey not instrogtif?”“If you wish to learn that a great number of years ago a vast quantity of inconsequent events occurred, or that in an otherwise amusing enough world there are here and there collected so many roomfuls of cheerless articles, I can strongly recommend a visit to the Tower of London or the British Museum.”“In mine own gontry,”said the Baron, thoughtfully,“I can lairn zo moch.”“Then, my dear Baron, while you are here forget it all.”“And yet,”said the Baron, still thoughtfully,“somzing I should lairn here.”[pg 82]“Certainly; you will learn something of what goes on underneath a waistcoat and a little of the contents of a corset and petticoat. Also of the strange customs of this city and the excellence of British institutions.”“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron, who thought that if his friend had not actually made a jest, it was at least time for one to occur.“I see, I see. I draw ze moral, ha, ha!”“This morning,”Mr Bunker continued, reflectively,“we might—let me see—well, we might do a little shopping. To tell you the truth, Baron, my South African experiences have somewhat exhausted my wardrobe.”“Ach, zo. Cairtainly ve vill shop. Bot, Bonker, Soud Africa? Vas it not Soud America?”“Did I say Africa? America of course I meant. Well, let us shop if you have no objections: then we might have a little lunch, and afterwards visit the Park. For the evening, what do you say to a theatre?”“Goot!”cried the Baron.“Make it tzos.”Mr Bunker’s shopping turned out to be a pretty extensive operation.“Loan vat you please of money,”said his friend.“A gentleman should be dressed in agreement.”With now and then an apology for his extravagance, he took full advantage of the Baron’s generosity, and ordered such an assortment of garments that his tailor could hardly bow low enough to express his gratification.After an excellent lunch in the most expensive restaurant to be found, they walked arm-in-arm westwards along[pg 83]Piccadilly, Mr Bunker pointing out the various objects of historical or ephemeral interest to be seen in that thoroughfare, the Baron drinking in this information with the serious air of the distinguished traveller.“And now we come to the Park,”said Mr Bunker.“Guard your heart, Baron.”“Ha, ha, ha!”replied the Baron.“Zo instrogtion is feenished, and now goms entertainment, ha?”“With the moral always running through it, remember.”“I shall not forget.”The sunshine had brought out a great many carriages and a sprinkling of walkers along the railings. The two friends strolled among them, eyeing the women and stopping now and then to look back at a carriage.“I suppose,”said the Baron,“zat vile you haf been avay your frients have forgot you.”As he spoke a young man looked hard at Mr Bunker, and even made a movement as though he would stop and speak to him. Mr Bunker looked blandly through him and walked on.“Do you not know zat gentleman?”“Which gentleman?”“Ze young man zat looked so at you.”“Some young men have a way of staring here, Baron.”A few minutes later a lady in a passing carriage looked round sharply at them with an air of great surprise, and half bowed.“Surely,”exclaimed the Baron,“zat vas a frient of yours!”“I am not a friend of hers, then,”Mr Bunker replied[pg 84]with a laugh.“Her bow I think must have been aimed at you.”The Baron shook his head, and seemed to be drawing a moral.“Baron,”his friend exclaimed, suddenly,“let us go back; here comes one of our most popular phenomena, a London fog. We need not stay in the Park to observe it.”The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage in and out, and closed silently behind it again.“I like not zis,”said the Baron, with a shiver.By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his shoulder.In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and began to walk hastily back again.[pg 85]“Vat for zis?”said the Baron, in great astonishment.“We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise, Baron, for my absence of mind.”* * * * *The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,”he said to himself.“I might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.”
“Vell, Bonker, vat show to-day?”said the Baron.
Mr Bunker sipped his coffee and smiled back at his friend.
“What would you like?”said he.
They were sitting in the Baron’s private room finishing one of the renowned Hôtel Mayonaise breakfasts. Out of the windows they could see the bright curving river, the bare tops of the Embankment trees, a file of barges drifting with the tide, and cold-looking clouds hurrying over the chaos of brick on the opposite shore. It was a bright breezy morning, and the Baron felt in high good-humour with his surroundings. On maturer consideration, the entertaining experience of the night before had greatly raised Mr Bunker in his estimation. He had chuckled his way through a substantial breakfast, and in such good company felt ready for any adventure that might turn up.
He lit a cigar, pushed back his chair, and replied blandly,“I am in your hands. I am ready to enjoy anyzing.”
“Do you wish instruction or entertainment?”
“Mix zem, Bonker. Entertain by instrogtion; instrogt by entertaining.”
“You are epigrammatic, Baron, but devilish vague. I presume, however, that you wish entertaining experience[pg 81]from which a man of your philosophical temperament can draw a moral—afterwards.”
“Ha, ha!”laughed the Baron.“Excellent! You provide ze experiences—I draw ze moral.”
“And we share the entertainment. The theory is perfect, but I’m afraid we need a programme. Now, on my own first visit to London I remember being taken—by the hand—to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, the Tower, St Paul’s Cathedral, the fishmarket at Billingsgate, the British Museum, and a number of other damnably edifying spectacles. You might naturally suppose that after such a round it would be quite superfluous for me ever to come up to town again. Yet, surprising as it may appear, most of the knowledge of London I hope to put at your disposal has been gained in the course of subsequent visits.”
“Bot zese places—Tousaud, Tower, Paul’s—are zey not instrogtif?”
“If you wish to learn that a great number of years ago a vast quantity of inconsequent events occurred, or that in an otherwise amusing enough world there are here and there collected so many roomfuls of cheerless articles, I can strongly recommend a visit to the Tower of London or the British Museum.”
“In mine own gontry,”said the Baron, thoughtfully,“I can lairn zo moch.”
“Then, my dear Baron, while you are here forget it all.”
“And yet,”said the Baron, still thoughtfully,“somzing I should lairn here.”
“Certainly; you will learn something of what goes on underneath a waistcoat and a little of the contents of a corset and petticoat. Also of the strange customs of this city and the excellence of British institutions.”
“Ha, ha, ha!”laughed the Baron, who thought that if his friend had not actually made a jest, it was at least time for one to occur.“I see, I see. I draw ze moral, ha, ha!”
“This morning,”Mr Bunker continued, reflectively,“we might—let me see—well, we might do a little shopping. To tell you the truth, Baron, my South African experiences have somewhat exhausted my wardrobe.”
“Ach, zo. Cairtainly ve vill shop. Bot, Bonker, Soud Africa? Vas it not Soud America?”
“Did I say Africa? America of course I meant. Well, let us shop if you have no objections: then we might have a little lunch, and afterwards visit the Park. For the evening, what do you say to a theatre?”
“Goot!”cried the Baron.“Make it tzos.”
Mr Bunker’s shopping turned out to be a pretty extensive operation.
“Loan vat you please of money,”said his friend.“A gentleman should be dressed in agreement.”
With now and then an apology for his extravagance, he took full advantage of the Baron’s generosity, and ordered such an assortment of garments that his tailor could hardly bow low enough to express his gratification.
After an excellent lunch in the most expensive restaurant to be found, they walked arm-in-arm westwards along[pg 83]Piccadilly, Mr Bunker pointing out the various objects of historical or ephemeral interest to be seen in that thoroughfare, the Baron drinking in this information with the serious air of the distinguished traveller.
“And now we come to the Park,”said Mr Bunker.“Guard your heart, Baron.”
“Ha, ha, ha!”replied the Baron.“Zo instrogtion is feenished, and now goms entertainment, ha?”
“With the moral always running through it, remember.”
“I shall not forget.”
The sunshine had brought out a great many carriages and a sprinkling of walkers along the railings. The two friends strolled among them, eyeing the women and stopping now and then to look back at a carriage.
“I suppose,”said the Baron,“zat vile you haf been avay your frients have forgot you.”
As he spoke a young man looked hard at Mr Bunker, and even made a movement as though he would stop and speak to him. Mr Bunker looked blandly through him and walked on.
“Do you not know zat gentleman?”
“Which gentleman?”
“Ze young man zat looked so at you.”
“Some young men have a way of staring here, Baron.”
A few minutes later a lady in a passing carriage looked round sharply at them with an air of great surprise, and half bowed.
“Surely,”exclaimed the Baron,“zat vas a frient of yours!”
“I am not a friend of hers, then,”Mr Bunker replied[pg 84]with a laugh.“Her bow I think must have been aimed at you.”
The Baron shook his head, and seemed to be drawing a moral.
“Baron,”his friend exclaimed, suddenly,“let us go back; here comes one of our most popular phenomena, a London fog. We need not stay in the Park to observe it.”
The sun was already obscured; there stole a most insidious chill through the air; like the changing of a scene on the stage they found themselves in a few minutes walking in a little ring of trees and road and iron railings instead of a wide sunny park; the roar of the streets came from behind a wall of mist that opened mysteriously to let a phantom carriage in and out, and closed silently behind it again.
“I like not zis,”said the Baron, with a shiver.
By the time they had found Piccadilly again there was nothing at all to be seen but the light of the nearest lamp, as large and far away as a struggling sun, and the shadowy people who flitted by.
Their talk ceased. The Baron turned up his collar and sucked his cigar lugubriously, and Mr Bunker seemed unusually thoughtful. They had walked nearly as far as Piccadilly Circus when they were pulled up by a cab turning down a side-street. There was a lamp-post at the corner, and under it stood a burly man, his red face quite visible as they came up to his shoulder.
In an instant Mr Bunker seized the Baron by the arm, pulled him round, and began to walk hastily back again.
“Vat for zis?”said the Baron, in great astonishment.
“We have come too far, thanks to this infernal fog. We must cross the street and take the first turning on the other side. I must apologise, Baron, for my absence of mind.”
* * * * *
The cab passed by and the red-faced man strolled on.
“Like lookin’ for a needle in a bloomin’ haystack,”he said to himself.“I might as well go back to Clankwood. ’E’s a good riddance, I say.”
CHAPTER IV.The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a second bottle; the Baron praised theentrées, and insisted on another helping. The frequent laughter arising from their table excited general remark throughout the room, and already the waiters were whispering to the other guests that this was a German nobleman of royal blood engaged in a diplomatic mission of importance, and his friend a ducal member of the English Cabinet, at present, for reasons of state, incognito.“Bonker!”exclaimed the Baron,“I am in zat frame of head I vant a romance, an adventure”(lowering his voice a little),“mit a beautiful lady, Bonker.”“It must be a romance, Baron?”[pg 86]“A novel, a story to tell to mine frients. In a strange city man expects strange zings.”“Well, I’ll do my best for you, but I confess the provision of romantic adventures is a little outside the programme we’ve arranged.”“Ha, ha! Ve shall see, ve shall see, Bonker!”They arrived at the Corinthian Theatre about the middle of the first act, for, as Mr Bunker explained, it is always well to produce a good first impression, and few more effective means can be devised than working one’s way to the middle of a line of stalls with the play already in progress.Hardly were they seated when the Baron drove his elbow into his friend’s ribs (draped for the night, it may be remarked, with one of the Baron’s spare dress-coats) and exclaimed in an excited whisper,“Next to you, Bonker! Ach, zehr hüpsch!”Even before this hint Mr Bunker had observed that the lady on the other side of him was possessed of exceptional attractions. For a little time he studied her out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed that the stall on the farther side of her was empty, that she once or twice looked round as though she expected somebody, and that she seemed not altogether unconscious of her new neighbours. He further observed that her face was of a type that is more usually engaged in attack than defence.Then he whispered,“Would you like to know her?”“Ach, yah!”replied the Baron, eagerly.“Bot—can you?”[pg 87]Mr Bunker smiled confidently. A few minutes later he happened to let his programme fall into her lap.“I beg your pardon,”he whispered, softly, and glanced into her eyes with a smile ready.His usual discernment had not failed him. She smiled, and instantly he produced his.A little later her opera-glasses happened to slip from her hand, and though they only slipped slowly, it was no doubt owing to his ready presence of mind that their fall was averted.This time their fingers happened to touch, and they smiled without an apology.He leant towards her, looking, however, at the play. They shared a laugh over a joke that she might have been excused for not understanding; presently a criticism of some situation escaped him inadvertently, and she smiled again; soon after she gave an exclamation and he answered sympathetically, and at the end of the act the curtain came down on an acquaintance already begun. As the lights were turned up, and here and there men began to go out, she again looked at the entrances in some apparent concern, either lest some one should not come in or lest some one should.“He is late,”said Mr Bunker, smiling.She gave a very enticing look of surprise, and consented to smile back before she coyly looked away again.“An erring husband, I presume.”She admitted that it was in fact a husband who had failed her.“But,”she added,“I’m afraid—I mean I expect he’ll[pg 88]come in after the next act. It’s so tiresome of him to disappoint me like this.”Mr Bunker expressed the deepest sympathy with her unfortunate predicament.“He has his ticket, of course?”But it seemed that she had both the tickets with her, an arrangement which he immediately denounced as likely to lead to difficulties when her husband arrived. He further, in the most obliging manner, suggested that he should take the ticket for the other seat to the booking office and leave instructions for its being given to the gentleman on his arrival. The lady gave him a curious little glance that seemed to imply a mixture of doubt as to his motives with confidence in his abilities, and then with many thanks agreed to his suggestion. Mr Bunker took the ticket and rose at once.“That I may be sure you are in good company while I am away,”said he,“permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”And the Baron promptly took his vacant seat.On his return Mr Bunker found his friend wreathed in smiles and engaged in the most animated conversation with the lady, and before the last act was over, he gathered from such scraps of conversation as reached his ears that Rudolph von Blitzenberg had little to learn in one department of a nobleman’s duties.“I wonder where my husband can be,”the lady whispered.“Ach, heed him not, fair lady,”replied the Baron.“Am I not instead of a hosband?”[pg 89]“I’m afraid you’re a very naughty man, Baron.”“Ven I am viz you,”the gallant Baron answered,“I forget myself all bot your charms.”These advances being made in the most dulcet tones of which the nobleman was master, and accompanied by the most enamoured expression, it is not surprising that the lady permitted herself to listen to them with perhaps too ready an ear. What Mr Bunker’s arrangement with the booking clerk had been was never quite clear, but certainly the erring husband failed to make his appearance at all, and at the last fall of the curtain she was easily persuaded to let the Baron escort her home.“I know I ought not, but if a husband deserts one so faithlessly, what can I do?”she said, with a very becoming little shrug of her shoulders and a captivating lift of her eyebrows.“Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort.”“But won’t it be troubling you?”“Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!”“Excuse me, Baron,”said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow;“if you will wait here at the door I shall send up a cab.”“Goot!”cried the Baron,“a zouzand zanks!”“I myself,”added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady,“shall say good night now. The best of luck, Baron!”In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.“Not too qvickly!”he added, in a stage aside.[pg 90]They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a marriage bell,—almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.“Why are we going down Whitehall?”the lady exclaimed, suddenly.“I know not,”replied the Baron, placidly.“Ask him where he is going!”she said.The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply,“All right, sir,”came back through the hole in the roof.“I seem to know that man’s voice,”the lady said.“He must have driven me before.”“To me all ze English speak ze same,”replied the Baron.“All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more reckless.“Can’t you catch the reins?”cried the lady, who had got into a terrible fright.The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady burst into tears.[pg 91]The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets, past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown wilderness of brick.“Oh, don’t let him murder me!”sobbed the lady.“Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and blitzen! Haf courage, dear!”“Oh dear, oh dear!”wailed the lady.“I shallneverdo it again!”They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was rubbing his head some yards in front.“Teufel!”exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet.“Ach, mine dearest vun, art thou hurt?”The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she burst into hysterical laughter.“Ach, zo,”said the Baron, much relieved,“zen vill I see ze cabman.”That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the sight of the driver’s face he started back in blank astonishment.“Bonker!”“It is I indeed, my dear Baron,”replied that gentleman,[pg 92]politely.“I must ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to your friend, I don’t know how I am to make my peace with her.”“Bot—bot vat means zis?”gasped the Baron.“I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required, besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady’s better acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear lady, can I assist you in any way?”Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative answer.“Where are we?”asked the lady, who hovered between fright and indignation.Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.“It would be rash to hazard an opinion,”he replied.“Well!”cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright.“Do you mean to say you’ve brought us here against our wills and probably got me intodreadfultrouble, and you don’t even know where we are?”Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.“Oneoughtto be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of those stars,”he replied;“but, to tell the truth, I don’t quite know which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely through ignorance, that I cannot direct you.”The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.“You’vehelped to get me into this mess,”she said, tartly.“What do you propose to do?”[pg 93]“My fairest——”“Don’t!”she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one another.“It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I’m afraid, is smashed beyond hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually arrive somewhere.”There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pass, they set out on foot. At last, after half an hour’s ramble through the solitudes of South London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way home, the lady’s indignation again gave way to fright.“WhatamI to do? WhatamI to do?”she wailed.“Oh, whatever will my husband say?”In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so infectious was his assurance, that, when at last they reached Eaton Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained,“My English, he is unsafe.”After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a dressing-gown.“Louisa!”he cried.“What the dev—where on earth have you been? The police are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is with you?”[pg 94]Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.“My dear sir,”he said,“we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night,”and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, assuring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.“So you have had your adventure, Baron,”he added, with a smile.For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful guffaw,“Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas pleasant vile it lasted!”
The Baron and Mr Bunker discussed their dinner with the relish of approving connoisseurs. Mr Bunker commended the hock, and suggested a second bottle; the Baron praised theentrées, and insisted on another helping. The frequent laughter arising from their table excited general remark throughout the room, and already the waiters were whispering to the other guests that this was a German nobleman of royal blood engaged in a diplomatic mission of importance, and his friend a ducal member of the English Cabinet, at present, for reasons of state, incognito.
“Bonker!”exclaimed the Baron,“I am in zat frame of head I vant a romance, an adventure”(lowering his voice a little),“mit a beautiful lady, Bonker.”
“It must be a romance, Baron?”
“A novel, a story to tell to mine frients. In a strange city man expects strange zings.”
“Well, I’ll do my best for you, but I confess the provision of romantic adventures is a little outside the programme we’ve arranged.”
“Ha, ha! Ve shall see, ve shall see, Bonker!”
They arrived at the Corinthian Theatre about the middle of the first act, for, as Mr Bunker explained, it is always well to produce a good first impression, and few more effective means can be devised than working one’s way to the middle of a line of stalls with the play already in progress.
Hardly were they seated when the Baron drove his elbow into his friend’s ribs (draped for the night, it may be remarked, with one of the Baron’s spare dress-coats) and exclaimed in an excited whisper,“Next to you, Bonker! Ach, zehr hüpsch!”
Even before this hint Mr Bunker had observed that the lady on the other side of him was possessed of exceptional attractions. For a little time he studied her out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed that the stall on the farther side of her was empty, that she once or twice looked round as though she expected somebody, and that she seemed not altogether unconscious of her new neighbours. He further observed that her face was of a type that is more usually engaged in attack than defence.
Then he whispered,“Would you like to know her?”
“Ach, yah!”replied the Baron, eagerly.“Bot—can you?”
Mr Bunker smiled confidently. A few minutes later he happened to let his programme fall into her lap.
“I beg your pardon,”he whispered, softly, and glanced into her eyes with a smile ready.
His usual discernment had not failed him. She smiled, and instantly he produced his.
A little later her opera-glasses happened to slip from her hand, and though they only slipped slowly, it was no doubt owing to his ready presence of mind that their fall was averted.
This time their fingers happened to touch, and they smiled without an apology.
He leant towards her, looking, however, at the play. They shared a laugh over a joke that she might have been excused for not understanding; presently a criticism of some situation escaped him inadvertently, and she smiled again; soon after she gave an exclamation and he answered sympathetically, and at the end of the act the curtain came down on an acquaintance already begun. As the lights were turned up, and here and there men began to go out, she again looked at the entrances in some apparent concern, either lest some one should not come in or lest some one should.
“He is late,”said Mr Bunker, smiling.
She gave a very enticing look of surprise, and consented to smile back before she coyly looked away again.
“An erring husband, I presume.”
She admitted that it was in fact a husband who had failed her.
“But,”she added,“I’m afraid—I mean I expect he’ll[pg 88]come in after the next act. It’s so tiresome of him to disappoint me like this.”
Mr Bunker expressed the deepest sympathy with her unfortunate predicament.
“He has his ticket, of course?”
But it seemed that she had both the tickets with her, an arrangement which he immediately denounced as likely to lead to difficulties when her husband arrived. He further, in the most obliging manner, suggested that he should take the ticket for the other seat to the booking office and leave instructions for its being given to the gentleman on his arrival. The lady gave him a curious little glance that seemed to imply a mixture of doubt as to his motives with confidence in his abilities, and then with many thanks agreed to his suggestion. Mr Bunker took the ticket and rose at once.
“That I may be sure you are in good company while I am away,”said he,“permit me to introduce my friend the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”
And the Baron promptly took his vacant seat.
On his return Mr Bunker found his friend wreathed in smiles and engaged in the most animated conversation with the lady, and before the last act was over, he gathered from such scraps of conversation as reached his ears that Rudolph von Blitzenberg had little to learn in one department of a nobleman’s duties.
“I wonder where my husband can be,”the lady whispered.
“Ach, heed him not, fair lady,”replied the Baron.“Am I not instead of a hosband?”
“I’m afraid you’re a very naughty man, Baron.”
“Ven I am viz you,”the gallant Baron answered,“I forget myself all bot your charms.”
These advances being made in the most dulcet tones of which the nobleman was master, and accompanied by the most enamoured expression, it is not surprising that the lady permitted herself to listen to them with perhaps too ready an ear. What Mr Bunker’s arrangement with the booking clerk had been was never quite clear, but certainly the erring husband failed to make his appearance at all, and at the last fall of the curtain she was easily persuaded to let the Baron escort her home.
“I know I ought not, but if a husband deserts one so faithlessly, what can I do?”she said, with a very becoming little shrug of her shoulders and a captivating lift of her eyebrows.
“Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort.”
“But won’t it be troubling you?”
“Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!”
“Excuse me, Baron,”said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow;“if you will wait here at the door I shall send up a cab.”
“Goot!”cried the Baron,“a zouzand zanks!”
“I myself,”added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady,“shall say good night now. The best of luck, Baron!”
In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.
“Not too qvickly!”he added, in a stage aside.
They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a marriage bell,—almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.
“Why are we going down Whitehall?”the lady exclaimed, suddenly.
“I know not,”replied the Baron, placidly.
“Ask him where he is going!”she said.
The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply,“All right, sir,”came back through the hole in the roof.
“I seem to know that man’s voice,”the lady said.“He must have driven me before.”
“To me all ze English speak ze same,”replied the Baron.“All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”
Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more reckless.
“Can’t you catch the reins?”cried the lady, who had got into a terrible fright.
The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady burst into tears.[pg 91]The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets, past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown wilderness of brick.
“Oh, don’t let him murder me!”sobbed the lady.
“Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and blitzen! Haf courage, dear!”
“Oh dear, oh dear!”wailed the lady.“I shallneverdo it again!”
They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was rubbing his head some yards in front.
“Teufel!”exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet.“Ach, mine dearest vun, art thou hurt?”
The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she burst into hysterical laughter.
“Ach, zo,”said the Baron, much relieved,“zen vill I see ze cabman.”
That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the sight of the driver’s face he started back in blank astonishment.
“Bonker!”
“It is I indeed, my dear Baron,”replied that gentleman,[pg 92]politely.“I must ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to your friend, I don’t know how I am to make my peace with her.”
“Bot—bot vat means zis?”gasped the Baron.
“I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required, besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady’s better acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear lady, can I assist you in any way?”
Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative answer.
“Where are we?”asked the lady, who hovered between fright and indignation.
Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.
“It would be rash to hazard an opinion,”he replied.
“Well!”cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright.“Do you mean to say you’ve brought us here against our wills and probably got me intodreadfultrouble, and you don’t even know where we are?”
Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.
“Oneoughtto be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of those stars,”he replied;“but, to tell the truth, I don’t quite know which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely through ignorance, that I cannot direct you.”
The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.
“You’vehelped to get me into this mess,”she said, tartly.“What do you propose to do?”
“My fairest——”
“Don’t!”she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one another.
“It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I’m afraid, is smashed beyond hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually arrive somewhere.”
There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pass, they set out on foot. At last, after half an hour’s ramble through the solitudes of South London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way home, the lady’s indignation again gave way to fright.
“WhatamI to do? WhatamI to do?”she wailed.“Oh, whatever will my husband say?”
In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so infectious was his assurance, that, when at last they reached Eaton Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained,“My English, he is unsafe.”
After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a dressing-gown.
“Louisa!”he cried.“What the dev—where on earth have you been? The police are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is with you?”
Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.
“My dear sir,”he said,“we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night,”and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, assuring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.
“So you have had your adventure, Baron,”he added, with a smile.
For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful guffaw,“Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas pleasant vile it lasted!”