a second's reflection and
calculation; and suddenly the club swung upwards, descended and struck
the ball.

The ball flew through the air and suddenly veered to the left; then,
curving to the right after passing a clump of trees which formed an
obstacle to be avoided, it fell on the putting-green at a few yards'
distance from the hole.

"Well done!" cried Simon. "A very pretty screw!"

"Not so bad, not so bad," said Lord Bakefield, resuming his round.

Simon did not allow himself to be disconcerted by this curious method
of beginning an interview and broached his subject, without further
preamble:

"Lord Bakefield, you know who my father is, a Dieppe ship-owner, with
the largest merchant-fleet in France. So I need say no more on that
side."

"Capital fellow, M. Dubosc," said Lord Bakefield, approvingly. "I had
the pleasure of shaking hands with him at Dieppe last month. Capital
fellow."

Simon continued, delightedly:

"Let us consider my own case. I'm an only son. I have an independent
fortune from my poor mother. When I was twenty, I crossed the Sahara
in an aeroplane without touching ground. At twenty-one, I made the
record for the running mile. At twenty-two, I won two events at the
Olympic Games: fencing and swimming. At twenty-five, I was the world's
champion all-round athlete. And mixed up with all this was the Morocco
campaign: four times mentioned in dispatches, promoted lieutenant in
the reserve, awarded the military medal and the medal for saving
life. That's all. Oh no, I was forgetting: licentiate in letters,
laureate of the Academy for my essays on the Grecian ideal of beauty.
There you are. I am twenty-nine years of age."

Lord Bakefield looked at him with the tail of his eye and murmured:

"Not bad, young man, not bad."

"As for the future," Simon continued, without waiting, "that won't
take long. I don't like making plans. However, I have the offer of a
seat in the Chamber of Deputies at the coming elections, in August. Of
course, politics don't much interest me. But after all . . . if I
must. . . . And then I'm young: I shall always manage to get a place
in the sun. Only, there's one thing . . . at least, from your point of
view, Lord Bakefield. My name is Simon Dubosc. Dubosc in one word,
without the particule . . . without the least semblance of a title.
. . . And that, of course. . . ."

He expressed himself without embarrassment, in a good-humoured,
playful tone. Lord Bakefield, the