e floor, and as he
proceeded with what he had to say, I observed, in spite of his efforts to
conceal the fact, that Raffles Holmes was rather more deeply interested in
the story the General was telling than in such chance observations as I was
making. Hence I finished the luncheon in silence and even as did Holmes,
listened to the General's periods--and they were as usual worth listening
to.

"It was in the early eighties," said General Cox. "I was informally attached
to the Spanish legation at Madrid. The King of Spain, Alphonso XII, was
about to be married to the highly esteemed lady who is now the Queen-Mother
of that very interesting youth, Alphonso XIII. In anticipation of the event
the city was in a fever of gayety and excitement that always attends upon a
royal function of that nature. Madrid was crowded with visitors of all
sorts, some of them not as desirable as they might be, and here and there,
in the necessary laxity of the hour, one or two perhaps that were most
inimical to the personal safety and general welfare of the King. Alphonso,
like many another royal personage, was given to the old Haroun Al Raschid
habit of travelling about at night in a more or less impenetrable incognito,
much to the distaste of his ministers and to the apprehension of the police,
who did not view with any too much satisfaction the possibility of disaster
to the royal person and the consequent blame that would rest upon their
shoulders should anything of a serious nature befall. To all of this,
however, the King was oblivious, and it so happened one night that in the
course of his wanderings he met with the long dreaded mix-up. He and his two
companions fell in with a party of cut-throats who promptly proceeded to
hold them up. The companions were speedily put out of business by the
attacking party, and the King found himself in the midst of a very serious
misadventure, the least issue from which bade fair to be a thorough beating,
if not an attempt on his life. It was at the moment when his chances of
escape were not one in a million, when, on my way home from the Legation,
where I had been detained to a very late hour, I came upon him struggling in
the hands of four as nasty ruffians as you will find this side of the
gallows. One of them held him by the arms, another was giving him a fairly
expert imitation of how it feels to be garroted, which the other two were
rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit