rold himself. He was
requesting permission to take Dora back with us, and it was granted
with some demur, because she must be with Mrs. Randal Horsman on her
return to town on the Monday; a day's lessons could not be sacrificed,
for she was very backward, and had no application; but Harold undertook
that she should meet the lady at the station, and gained his point.

Clan Horsman knew too well what he had done to deny him anything he
asked. A man who had not only taken a mad dog by the throat, but had
brought home two hundred and twenty pounds worth of gold to lay on the
table, deserved something at their hands, though ice was all he
actually received; but Eustace, when he came to us while the bride was
changing her dress, was in a fretful, fault-finding mood, partly it may
be from the desire to assert himself, as usual, above his cousin.

He was dissatisfied with the price paid for Boola-Boola. Someone had
told him it would realise four times as much, and when Harold would
have explained that this was unreasonable, he was cut short with the
declaration that the offer ought not to have been accepted without
reference to the other party concerned.

Next he informed Harold, in an off-hand way, that some of the new
improvements at Arghouse would not work, and that he had a new agent--a
_responsible_ agent--who was not to be interfered with.

There was a certain growl in Harold's "very well," but the climax was
Eustace's indignation when he heard of Prometesky's arrival. He had
worked himself, by way of doing the country squire completely, into a
disgust of the old exile, far out-Heroding what he had heard from Lord
Erymanth, and that "the old incendiary" should be in his house was a
great offence.

"He shall not sleep there another night, neither will I," said Harold,
in a calm voice, but with such a gleam in his eyes as I had seen when
he fell on Bullock.

It had at least the effect of reducing Eustace to his old habit of
subordination, and he fell into an agony of "No, I did not mean that,
and--" stammering out something in excuse about not liking the servants
and all to think he was harbouring a returned convict.

I had taken care of that. I knew how "that that there Fotsky" was the
ogre of the riots, and I had guarded against his identification by
speaking of our guest as the foreign gentleman who had come home with
Mr. Harold, and causing him to be called Count Stanislas; and, on
hearing this, Eustace beca