es. So I said that nothing would
please me more than to see this castle.

Thither we drove accordingly through the fine, frosty air, for the month
was December. On reaching the castle, Mr. Scroope was told that Lord
Ragnall, whom he knew well, was out shooting somewhere in the park, but
that, of course, he could show his friend over the place. So we went
in, the three of us, for Miss Manners, to whom Scroope was to be married
very shortly, had driven us over in her pony carriage. The porter at the
gateway towers took us to the main door of the castle and handed us over
to another man, whom he addressed as Mr. Savage, whispering to me that
he was his lordship's personal attendant.

I remember the name, because it seemed to me that I had never seen
anyone who looked much less savage. In truth, his appearance was that
of a duke in disguise, as I imagine dukes to be, for I never set eyes
on one. His dress--he wore a black morning cut-away coat--was faultless.
His manners were exquisite, polite to the verge of irony, but with a
hint of haughty pride in the background. He was handsome also, with a
fine nose and a hawk-like eye, while a touch of baldness added to the
general effect. His age may have been anything between thirty-five and
forty, and the way he deprived me of my hat and stick, to which I
strove to cling, showed, I thought, resolution of character. Probably, I
reflected to myself, he considers me an unusual sort of person who might
damage the pictures and other objects of art with the stick, and not
seeing his way how to ask me to give it up without suggesting suspicion,
has hit upon the expedient of taking my hat also.

In after days Mr. Samuel Savage informed me that I was quite right
in this surmise. He said he thought that, judging from my somewhat
unconventional appearance, I might be one of the dangerous class of whom
he had been reading in the papers, namely, a "hanarchist." I write the
word as he pronounced it, for here comes the curious thing. This man,
so flawless, so well instructed in some respects, had a fault which gave
everything away. His h's were uncertain. Three of them would come quite
right, but the fourth, let us say, would be conspicuous either by
its utter absence or by its unwanted appearance. He could speak, when
describing the Ragnall pictures, in rotund and flowing periods that
would scarcely have disgraced the pen of Gibbon. Then suddenly that
"h" would appear or disappear, and the il