“A decidedly delectable residence,” said Count Bunker to himself as his dog-cart approached the lodge gates of The Lash. “And a very proper setting for the pleasant scenes so shortly to be enacted. Lodge, avenue, a bogus turret or two, and a flagstaff on top of 'em—by Gad, I think one may safely assume a tolerable cellar in such a mansion.”
As he drove up the avenue between a double line of ancient elms and sycamores, his satisfaction increased and his spirits rose ever higher.
“I wonder if I can forecast the evening: a game of three-handed bridge, in which I trust I'll be lucky enough to lose a little silver, that'll put 'em in good-humor and make old Miss What-d'ye-may-call-her the more willing to go to bed early; then the departure of the chaperon; and then the tete-a-tete! I hope to Heaven I haven't got rusty!”
With considerable satisfaction he ran over the outfit he had brought, deeming it even on second thoughts a singularly happy selection: the dining coat with pale-blue lapels, the white tie of a new material and cut borrowed from the Baron's finery, the socks so ravishingly embroidered that he had more than once caught the ladies at Hechnahoul casting affectionate glances upon them.
“A first-class turn-out,” he thought. “And what a lucky thing I thought of borrowing a banjo from young Gallosh! A coon song in the twilight will break the ground prettily.”
By this time they had stopped before the door, and an elderly man-servant, instead of waiting for the Count, came down the steps to meet him. In his manner there was something remarkably sheepish and constrained, and, to the Count's surprise, he thrust forth his hand almost as if he expected it to be shaken. Bunker, though a trifle puzzled, promptly handed him the banjo case, remarking pleasantly—
“My banjo; take care of it, please.”
The man started so violently that he all but dropped it upon the steps.
“What the deuce did he think I said?” wondered the Count. “'Banjo' can't have sounded 'dynamite.'”
He entered the house, and found himself in a pleasant hall, where his momentary uneasiness was at once forgotten in the charming welcome of his hostess. Not only she, but her chaperon, received him with a flattering warmth that realized his utmost expectations.
“It was so good of you to come!” cried Miss Wallingford.
“So very kind,” murmured Miss Minchell.
“I knew you wouldn't think it too unorthodox!” added Julia.
“I'm afraid orthodoxy is a crime I shall never swing for,” said the Count, with his most charming smile.
“I am sure my father wouldn't REALLY mind,” said Julia.
“Not if Sir Justin shared your enthusiasm, dear,” added Miss Minchell.
“I must teach him to!”
“Good Lord!” thought the Count. “This is friendly indeed.”
A few minutes passed in the exchange of these preliminaries, and then his hostess said, with a pretty little air of discipleship that both charmed and slightly puzzled him,
“You do still think that nobody should dine later than six, don't you? I have ordered dinner for six to-night.”
“Six!” exclaimed the Count, but recovering himself, added, “An ideal hour—and it is half-past five now. Perhaps I had better think of dressing.”
“What YOU call dressing!” smiled Julia, to his justifiable amazement. “Let me show you to your room.”
She led him upstairs, and finally stopped before an open door.
“There!” she said, with an air of pride. “It is really my father's bedroom when he is at home, but I've had it specially prepared for YOU! Is it just as you would like?”
Bunker was incapable of observing anything very particularly beyond the fact that the floor was uncarpeted, and as nearly free from furniture as a bedroom floor could well be.
“It is ravishing!” he murmured, and dismissed her with a well-feigned smile.
Bereft even of expletives, he gazed round the apartment prepared for him. It was a few moments before he could bring himself to make a tour of its vast bleakness.
“I suppose that's what they call a truckle-bed,” he mused. “Oh, there is one chair—nothing but cold water-towels made of vegetable fibre apparently. The devil take me, is this a reformatory for bogus noblemen!”
He next gazed at the bare whitewashed wall. On it hung one picture—the portrait of a strangely attired man.
“What a shocking-looking fellow!” he exclaimed, and went up to examine it more closely.
Then, with a stupefying shock, he read this legend beneath it:
“Count Bunker. Philosopher, teacher, and martyr.”
For a minute he stared in rapt amazement, and then sharply rang the bell.
“Hang it,” he said to himself, “I must throw a little light on this somehow!”
Presently the elderly man-servant appeared, this time in a state of still more obvious confusion. For a moment he stared at the Count—who was too discomposed by his manner to open his lips—and then, once more stretching out his hand, exclaimed in a choked voice and a strong Scotch accent—
“How are ye, Bunker!”
“What the deuce!” shouted the Count, evading the proffered hand-shake with an agile leap.
The poor fellow turned scarlet, and in an humble voice blurted out—
“She told me to do it! Miss Julia said ye'd like me to shake hands and just ca' ye plain Bunker. I beg your pardon, sir; oh, I beg your pardon humbly!”
The Count looked at him keenly.
“He is evidently telling the truth,” he thought.
Thereupon he took from his pocket half a sovereign.
“My good fellow,” he began. “By the way, what's your name?”
“Mackenzie, sir.”
“Mackenzie, my honest friend, I clearly perceive that Miss Wallingford, in her very kind efforts to gratify my unconventional tastes, has put herself to quite unnecessary trouble. She has even succeeded in surprising me, and I should be greatly obliged if you would kindly explain to me the reasons for her conduct, so far as you can.”
At this point the half-sovereign changed hands.
“In the first place,” resumed the Count, “what is the meaning of this remarkably villainous portrait labelled with my name?”
“That, sir,” stammered Mackenzie, greatly taken aback by the inquiry. “Why, sir, that's the famous Count Bunker—your uncle, sir, is he no'?”
Bunker began to see a glimmer of light, though the vista it illumined was scarcely a much pleasanter prospect than the previous bank of fog. He remembered now, for the first time since his journey north, that the Baron, in dubbing him Count Bunker, had encouraged him to take the title on the ground that it was a real dignity once borne by a famous personage; and in a flash he realized the pitfalls that awaited a solitary false step.
“THAT my uncle!” he exclaimed with an air of pleased surprise, examining the portrait more attentively; “by Gad, I suppose it is! But I can't say it is a flattering likeness. 'Philosopher, teacher, and martyr'—how apt a description! I hadn't noticed that before, or I should have known at once who it was.”
Still Mackenzie was looking at him with a perplexed and uneasy air.
“Miss Wallingford, sir, seems under the impression that you would be wanting jist the same kind of things as he likit,” he remarked diffidently.
The Count laughed.
“Hence the condemned cell she's put me in? I see! Ha, ha! No, Mackenzie, I have moved with the times. In fact, my uncle's philosophy and teachings always struck me as hardly suitable for a gentleman.”
“I was thinking that mysel',” observed Mackenzie.
“Well, you understand now how things are, don't you? By the way, you haven't put out my evening clothes, I notice.”
“You werena to dress, sir, Miss Julia said.”
“Not to dress! What the deuce does she expect me to dine in?”
With a sheepish grin Mackenzie pointed to something upon the bed which the Count had hitherto taken to be a rough species of quilt.
“She said you might like to wear that, sir.”
The Count took it up.
“It appears to be a dressing-gown!” said he.
“She said, sir, your uncle was wont to dine in it.”
“Ah! It's one of my poor uncle's eccentricities, is it? Very nice of Miss Wallingford; but all the same I think you can put out my evening clothes for me; and, I say, get me some hot water and a couple of towels that feel a little less like sandpaper, will you? By the way—one moment, Mackenzie!—you needn't mention anything of this to Miss Wallingford. I'll explain it all to her myself.”
It is remarkable how the presence or absence of a few of the very minor accessories of life will affect the humor even of a man so essentially philosophical as Count Bunker. His equanimity was most marvelously restored by a single jugful of hot water, and by the time he came to survey his blue lapels in the mirror the completest confidence shone in his humorous eyes.
“How deuced pleased she'll be to find I'm a white man after all,” he reflected. “Supposing I'd really turned out a replica of that unshaved heathen on the wall—poor girl, what a dull evening she'd have spent! Perhaps I'd better break the news gently for the chaperon's sake, but once we get her of to bed I rather fancy the fair Julia and I will smile together over my dear uncle's dressing-gown!”
And in this humor he strode forth to conquer.
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