ee?"

"Something of that sort," I said, good-humoredly.

"Oh, Don Quixote once more, eh?" he sneered, too mad to raise his voice
to the more convenient bellow which seemed to soothe him as much as it
distressed his listener. "Well, you've got a fool's mate in Sir George
Covert, the insufferable dandy! And all you two need is a pair o' Panzas
and a brace of windmills. Bah!" He grew angrier. "Bah, I say!" He broke
out: "Damnation, sir! Go to the devil!"

I said, calmly: "Sir Lupus, I hear your observation with patience; I
naturally receive your admonition with respect, but your bearing towards
me I resent. Pray, sir, remember that I am under your roof now, but when
I quit it I am free to call you to account."

"What! You'd fight me?"

"Scarcely, sir; but I should expect somebody to make your words good."

"Bah! Who? Ruyven? He's a lad! Dorothy is the only one to--" He broke
out into a hoarse laugh. "Oh, you Ormonds! I might have saved myself the
pains. And now you want to flesh your sword, it matters not in
whom--Tory, rebel, neutral folk, they're all one to you, so that you
fight! George, don't take offence; I naturally swear at those I differ
with. I may love 'em and yet curse 'em like a sailor! Know me better,
George! Bear with me; let me swear at you, lad! It's all I can do."

He spread out his fat hands imploringly, recrossing his enormous legs on
the card-table. "I can't fight, George; I would gladly, but I'm too fat.
Don't grudge me a few kindly oaths now and then. It's all I can do."

I was seized with a fit of laughter, utterly uncontrollable. Sir Lupus
observed me peevishly, twiddling his broken pipe, and I saw he longed to
launch it at my head, which made me laugh till his large, round, red
face grew grayer and foggier through the mirth-mist in my eyes.

"Am I so droll?" he snapped.

"Oh yes, yes, Sir Lupus," I cried, weakly. "Don't grudge me this laugh.
It is all I can do."

A grim smile came over his broad face.

"Touched!" he said. "I've a fine pair on my hands now--you and Sir
George Covert--to plague me and prick me with your wit, like mosquitoes
round a drowsy man. A fine family conference we shall have, with Sir
John Johnson and the Butlers shooting one way, you and Sir George Covert
firing t'other, and me betwixt you, singing psalms and getting all your
arrows in me, fore and aft."

"Who is Sir George Covert?" I asked.

"One o' the Calverts, Lord Baltimore's kin, a sort of cousin of the