en turned on his side, and gasped and gasped.

[Illustration: As a battering ram upon the first and second buttons of
his waistcoat.]

"Come along!" cried Tinker in a most imperative tone. "A row is a
horrid nuisance when there are women in it!" And he caught his
charges, either by an arm, and bustled them out of the dell and down
the road.

Dorothy laughed as she ran; never before had she seen vaunting
arrogance brought low in so sudden and signal a fashion. At last she
stopped, dabbed away the tears of mirth, and said, "Oh, Tinker, I am so
much obliged to you! It's all very well to laugh now; but it might
have been horrid!"

"It was the simplest thing in the world," said Tinker. Then, rubbing
his head ruefully, he added, "I wish those foreigners would not wear
gold buttons on their white waistcoats in the daytime. They have no
more notion of how to dress than a cat--the men haven't."

They hurried along, looking back now and again to see if they were
followed. They were not, for Count Sigismond was now sitting up in the
shady dell, staring round it with fishy eyes, and wondering dully
whether he owed his disaster entirely to an angel child, or whether
Mont Pelee had affected the neighbourhood. He gasped still.

As they drew near the town, Tinker grew thoughtful. Suddenly he
stopped, and said seriously, "Now, look here, both of you, we mustn't
let my father know about this, or he'll certainly thrash that bounding
Frenchman; and that wouldn't be good enough, don't you know."

"It would be very good for him," said Dorothy with some vindictiveness.

"Yes, but not for my father," said Tinker very earnestly, indeed. "For
all that he looks like a swollen frog, Le Comte de Puy-de-Dome is
awfully dangerous with the pistol. He's hurt two men badly in duels
already."

"Has he?" said Dorothy quickly, and the colour faded in her cheeks.
"Then we must, indeed, say nothing about it."

"Swear," said Tinker, raising his right hand.

"We swear," said Dorothy and Elsie in one voice, raising their right
hands. It was a formality which had to be gone through many times when
they played at being conspirators; their words and action were
mechanical.

"That's all right," said Tinker with a sigh of relief.

Count Sigismond returned to his hotel in a very hot fury. His outraged
pride clamoured for vengeance, and he sought for someone on whom to be
revenged. He was surprised at the end of two days to hear nothing o