--Canada and Australia, and the others. However, we will not talk
of politics. It bores you, I can see. We will try and find some other
subject. Now tell me, don't you think this is ingenious?"

They had reached the foot of the hill upon which the Hall was situated.
In front of them, underneath the terrace, was a little iron gate, held
open now by Meekins, who had gone on ahead and dismounted from his
bicycle.

"I have a subterranean way from here into the Hall," Mr. Fentolin
explained. "Come with me. You will only have to stoop a little, and it
may amuse you. You need not be afraid. There are electric lights every
ten yards. I turn them on with this switch--see."

Mr. Fentolin touched a button in the wall, and the place was at once
brilliantly illuminated. A little row of lights from the ceiling and the
walls stretched away as far as one could see. They passed through the
iron gates, which shut behind them with a click. Stooping a little,
Hamel was still able to walk by the side of the man in the chair. They
traversed about a hundred yards of subterranean way. Here and there a
fungus hung down from the wall, otherwise it was beautifully kept and
dry. By and by, with a little turn, they came to an incline and another
iron gate, held open for them by a footman. Mr. Fentolin sped up the
last few feet into the great hail, which seemed more imposing than ever
by reason of this unexpected entrance. Hamel, blinking a little, stepped
to his side.

"Welcome!" Mr. Fentolin cried gaily. "Welcome, my friend Mr. Hamel, to
St. David's Hall!"

CHAPTER XIII

During the next half-hour, Hamel was introduced to luxuries to which,
in a general way, he was entirely unaccustomed. One man-servant was
busy preparing his bath in a room leading out of his sleeping apartment,
while another brought him a choice of evening clothes and superintended
his disrobing. Hamel, always observant, studied his surroundings
with keen interest. He found himself in a queerly mixed atmosphere of
luxurious modernity and stately antiquity. His four-poster, the huge
couch at the foot of his bed, and all the furniture about the room,
was of the Queen Anne period. The bathroom which communicated with his
apartment was the latest triumph of the plumber's art--a room with floor
and walls of white tiles, the bath itself a little sunken and twice the
ordinary size. He dispensed so far as he could with the services of the
men and descended, as soon as he was