politeness and sent the servants to the kitchen, with orders
that they should be well cared for.

"The old family dining-table was dragged out into the light and dusted
(Sir Hercules and his lady were accustomed to dine at a small table
twenty inches high). Simon, the aged butler, who could only just look
over the edge of the big table, was helped at supper by the three
servants brought by Ferdinando and his guests.

"Sir Hercules presided, and with his usual grace supported a
conversation on the pleasures of foreign travel, the beauties of art and
nature to be met with abroad, the opera at Venice, the singing of the
orphans in the churches of the same city, and on other topics of a
similar nature. The young men were not particularly attentive to his
discourses; they were occupied in watching the efforts of the butler to
change the plates and replenish the glasses. They covered their laughter
by violent and repeated fits of coughing or choking. Sir Hercules
affected not to notice, but changed the subject of the conversation to
sport. Upon this one of the young men asked whether it was true, as he
had heard, that he used to hunt the rabbit with a pack of pug dogs. Sir
Hercules replied that it was, and proceeded to describe the chase in
some detail. The young men roared with laughter.

"When supper was over, Sir Hercules climbed down from his chair and,
giving as his excuse that he must see how his lady did, bade them
good-night. The sound of laughter followed him up the stairs. Filomena
was not asleep; she had been lying on her bed listening to the sound of
enormous laughter and the tread of strangely heavy feet on the stairs
and along the corridors. Sir Hercules drew a chair to her bedside
and sat there for a long time in silence, holding his wife's hand and
sometimes gently squeezing it. At about ten o'clock they were startled
by a violent noise. There was a breaking of glass, a stamping of feet,
with an outburst of shouts and laughter. The uproar continuing for
several minutes, Sir Hercules rose to his feet and, in spite of his
wife's entreaties, prepared to go and see what was happening. There
was no light on the staircase, and Sir Hercules groped his way down
cautiously, lowering himself from stair to stair and standing for a
moment on each tread before adventuring on a new step. The noise was
louder here; the shouting articulated itself into recognisable words
and phrases. A line of light was visible under the d