"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, 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 n.o.bleman replied. "Yours, sare-may I dare?"
"Francis Bunker, at your service, Baron."
"You are n.o.ble?" 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 a.s.sure 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 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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sage. 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 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sure 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?" "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."
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-