ad enough--"

"And there you sit," cried Wayne, springing erect and with a voice
like a trumpet, "with no argument but to insult the King before his
face."

Buck rose also with blazing eyes.

"I am hard to bully," he began--and the slow tones of the King struck
in with incomparable gravity--

"My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is present.
It is not often that he needs to protect himself among his subjects."

Barker turned to him with frantic gestures.

"For God's sake don't back up the madman now," he implored. "Have
your joke another time. Oh, for Heaven's sake--"

"My Lord Provost of South Kensington," said King Auberon, steadily, "I
do not follow your remarks, which are uttered with a rapidity unusual
at Court. Nor do your well-meant efforts to convey the rest with your
fingers materially assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of North
Kensington, to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of his
Sovereign to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign's ordinances. Do
you disagree?"

Barker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed without
speaking. The King went on in a comfortable voice--

"My Lord Provost of Notting Hill, proceed."

Wayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one's surprise
there was a look in them not of triumph, but of a certain childish
distress.

"I am sorry, your Majesty," he said; "I fear I was more than equally
to blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. We were debating
somewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our feet. I did so first, I am
ashamed to say. The Provost of North Kensington is, therefore,
comparatively innocent. I beseech your Majesty to address your rebuke
chiefly, at least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did no
doubt, in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the rest
of the discussion he seems to me to have conducted with great good
temper."

Buck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all simple-minded,
and have therefore that degree of communion with fanatics. The King,
for some reason, looked, for the first time in his life, ashamed.

"This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill," began Buck,
pleasantly, "seems to me to show that we have at least got on to a
friendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five hundred pounds have been
offered to you for a property you admit not to be worth a hundred.
Well, I am a rich man and I won't be outdone in generosity. Let us say
fifteen hundred p