in which the desire for an assumption of any kind was a passion, he
had tried on that coat fully a dozen times, and while admiring how well it
became him, and how perfectly it seemed to suit his face and figure, he had
dramatised to himself the part of an aide-de-camp in waiting, rehearsing
the little speeches in which he presented this or that imaginary person to
his Excellency, and coining the small money of epigram in which he related
the news of the day.

'How I should cut out those dreary subalterns with their mess-room
drolleries, how I should shame those tiresome cornets, whose only glitter
is on their sabretaches!' muttered he, as he surveyed himself in his
courtly attire. 'It is all nonsense to say that the dress a man wears can
only impress the surrounders. It is on himself, on his own nature
and temper, his mind, his faculties, his very ambition, there is a
transformation effected; and I, Joe Atlee, feel myself, as I move about in
this costume, a very different man from that humble creature in grey tweed,
whose very coat reminds him he is a "cad," and who has but to look in the
glass to read his condition.'

On the morning he learned that Lady Maude would join him that day at
dinner, Atlee conceived the idea of appearing in this costume. It was not
only that she knew nothing of the Irish Court and its habits, but she made
an almost ostentatious show of her indifference to all about it, and in the
few questions she asked, the tone of interrogation might have suited Africa
as much as Ireland. It was true, she was evidently puzzled to know what
place or condition Atlee occupied; his name was not familiar to her, and
yet he seemed to know everything and everybody, enjoyed a large share of
his Excellency's confidence, and appeared conversant with every detail
placed before him.

That she would not directly ask him what place he occupied in the household
he well knew, and he felt at the same time what a standing and position
that costume would give him, what self-confidence and ease it would also
confer, and how, for once in his life, free from the necessity of asserting
a station, he could devote all his energies to the exercise of agreeability
and those resources of small-talk in which he knew he was a master.

Besides all this, it was to be his last day at the castle--he was to start
the next morning for Constantinople, with all instructions regarding the
spy Speridionides, and he desired to make a favourable