A carefully clothed young man, with an eyeglass and a wavering gait, walked slowly out of Euston Station. He had just seen the Scottish express depart, and this event seemed to have filled him with dubious reflections. In fact, at the very last moment Lord Tulliwuddle's confidence in his two friends had been a trifling degree disturbed. It occurred to him as he lingered by the door of their reserved first-class compartment that they had a little too much the air of gentlemen departing on their own pleasure rather than on his business. No sooner did he drop a fretful hint of this opinion than their affectionate protestations had quickly revived his spirit; but now that they were no longer with him to counsel and encourage, it once more drooped.
“Confound it!” he thought, “I hadn't bargained on having to keep out of people's way till they came back. If Essington had mentioned that sooner, I don't know that I'd have been so keen about the notion. Hang it! I'll have to chuck the Morrells' dance. And I can't go with the Greys to Ranelagh. I can't even dine with my own aunt on Sunday. Oh, the devil!”
The perturbed young peer waved his umbrella and climbed into a hansom.
“Well, anyhow, I can still go on seeing Connie. That's some consolation,” he told himself; and without stopping to consider what would be the thoughts of his two obliging friends had they known he was seeking consolation in the society of one lady while they were arranging his nuptials with another, the baptismal Tulliwuddle drove back to the civilization of St. James's.
Within the reserved compartment was no foreboding, no faint-hearted paling of the cheek. As the train clattered, hummed, and presently thundered on its way, the two laughed cheerfully towards one another, delighted beyond measure with the prosperous beginning of their enterprise. The Baron could not sufficiently express his gratitude and admiration for the promptitude with which his friend had purveyed so promising an adventure.
“Ve vill have fon, my Bonker. Ach! ve vill,” he exclaimed for the third or fourth time within a dozen miles from Euston.
His Bunker assumed an air half affectionate, half apologetic.
“I only regret that I should have the lion's share of the adventure, my dear Baron.”
“Yes,” said the Baron, with a symptom of a sigh, “I do envy you indeed. Yet I should not say zat——” Bunker swiftly interrupted him.
“You would like to play a worthier part than merely his lordship's friend?”
“Ach! if I could.”
Bunker smiled benignantly.
“Ah, Baron, you cannot suppose that I would really do Tulliwuddle such injustice as to attempt, in my own feeble manner, to impersonate him?”
The Baron stared.
“Vat mean you?”
“YOU shall be the lion, I the humble necessary jackal. As our friend so aptly quoted, noblesse oblige. Of course, there can be no doubt about it. You, Baron, must play the part of peer, I of friend.”
The Baron gasped.
“Impossible!”
“Quite simple, my dear fellow.”
“You—you don't mean so?”
“I do indeed.”
“Bot I shall not do it so vell as you.”
“A hundred times better.”
“Bot vy did you not say so before?”
“Tulliwuddle might not have agreed with me.”
“Bot vould he like it now?”
“It is not what he likes that we should consider, it's what is good for his interests.”
“Bot if I should fail?”
“He will be no worse off than before. Left to himself, he certainly won't marry the lady. You give him his only chance.”
“Bot more zan you vould, really and truthfully?”
“My dear Baron, you are admitted by all to be an ideal German nobleman. Therefore you will certainly make an ideal British peer. You have the true Grand-Seigneur air. No one would mistake you for anything but a great aristocrat, if they merely saw you in bathing pants; whereas I have something a little different about my manner. I'm not so impressive—not so hall-marked, in fact.”
His friend's omniscient air and candidly eloquent tone impressed the Baron considerably. His ingrained conviction of his own importance accorded admirably with these arguments. His thirst for “life” craved this lion's share. His sanguine spirit leaped at the appeal. Yet his well-regulated conscience could not but state one or two patent objections.
“Bot I have not read so moch of the Tollyvoddles as you. I do not know ze strings so vell.”
“I have told you nearly everything I know. You will find the rest here.”
Essington handed him the note-book containing his succinct digest. In intelligent anticipation of this contingency it was written in his clearest handwriting.
“You should have been a German,” said the Baron admiringly.
He glanced with sparkling eyes at the note-book, and then with a distinctly greater effort the Teutonic conscience advanced another objection.
“Bot you have bought ze kilt, ze Highland hat, ze brogue shoes.”
“I had them made to your measurements.”
The Baron impetuously embraced his thoughtful friend. Then again his smile died away.
“Bot, Bonker, my voice! Zey tell me I haf nozing zat you vould call qvite an accent; bot a foreigner—one does regognize him, eh?”
“I shall explain that in a sentence. The romantic tincture of—well, not quite accent, is a pleasant little piece of affectation adopted by the young bloods about the Court in compliment to the German connections of the Royal family.”
The Baron raised no more objections.
“Bonker, I agree! Tollyvoddle I shall be, by Jove and all!”
He beamed his satisfaction, and then in an eager voice asked—
“You haf not ze kilt in zat hat-box?”
Unfortunately, however, the kilt was in the van.
Now the journey, propitiously begun, became more exhilarating, more exciting with each mile flung by. The Baron, egged on by his friend's high spirits and his own imagination to anticipate pleasure upon pleasure, watched with rapture the summer landscape whiz past the windows. Through the flat midlands of England they sped; field after field, hedgerow after hedgerow, trees by the dozen, by the hundred, by the thousand, spinning by in one continuous green vista. Red brick towns, sluggish rivers, thatched villages and ancient churches dark with yews, the shining web of junctions, and a whisking glimpse of wayside stations leaped towards them, past them, and leagues away behind. But swiftly as they sped, it was all too slowly for the fresh-created Lord Tulliwuddle.
“Are we not nearly to Scotland yet?” he inquired some fifty times.
“'My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the dears!'” hummed the abdicated nobleman, whose hilarity had actually increased (if that were possible) since his descent into the herd again.
All the travellers' familiar landmarks were hailed by the gleeful diplomatist with encouraging comments.
“Ach, look! Beauteeful view! How quickly it is gone! Hurray! Ve must be nearly to Scotland.”
A panegyric on the rough sky-line of the north country fells was interrupted by the entrance of the dining-car attendant. Learning that they would dine, he politely inquired in what names he should engage their seats. Then, for an instant, a horrible confusion nearly overcame the Baron. He—a von Blitzenberg—to give a false name! His color rose, he stammered, and only in the nick of time caught his companion's eye.
“Ze Lord Tollyvoddle,” he announced, with an effort as heroic as any of his ancestors' most warlike enterprises.
Too impressed to inquire how this remarkable title should be spelled, the man turned to the other distinguished-looking passenger.
“Bunker,” said that gentleman, with smiling assurance.
The man went out.
“Now are ve named!” cried the Baron, his courage rising the higher for the shock it had sustained. “And you vunce more vill be Bonker? Goot!”
“That satisfies you?”
The Baron hesitated.
“My dear friend, I have a splendid idea! Do you know I did disgover zere used to be a nobleman in Austria really called Count Bonker? He vas a famous man; you need not be ashamed to take his name. Vy should not you be Count Bonker?”
“You prefer to travel in titled company? Well, be hanged—why not! When one comes to think of it, it seems a pity that my sins should always be attributed to the middle classes.”
Accordingly this history has now the honorable task of chronicling the exploits of no fewer than two noblemen.
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