name?"

"That, sir," stammered Mackenzie, greatly taken aback by the inquiry.
"Why, sir, that's the famous Count Bunker--your uncle, sir, is he no'?"

Bunker began to see a glimmer of light, though the vista it illumined
was scarcely a much pleasanter prospect than the previous bank of fog.
He remembered now, for the first time since his journey north, that the
Baron, in dubbing him Count Bunker, had encouraged him to take the
title on the ground that it was a real dignity once borne by a famous
personage; and in a flash he realized the pitfalls that awaited a
solitary false step.

"THAT my uncle!" he exclaimed with an air of pleased surprise, examining
the portrait more attentively; "by Gad, I suppose it is! But I can't say
it is a flattering likeness. 'Philosopher, teacher, and martyr'--how apt
a description! I hadn't noticed that before, or I should have known at
once who it was."

Still Mackenzie was looking at him with a perplexed and uneasy air.

"Miss Wallingford, sir, seems under the impression that you would
be wanting jist the same kind of things as he likit," he remarked
diffidently.

The Count laughed.

"Hence the condemned cell she's put me in? I see! Ha, ha! No, Mackenzie,
I have moved with the times. In fact, my uncle's philosophy and
teachings always struck me as hardly suitable for a gentleman."

"I was thinking that mysel'," observed Mackenzie.

"Well, you understand now how things are, don't you? By the way, you
haven't put out my evening clothes, I notice."

"You werena to dress, sir, Miss Julia said."

"Not to dress! What the deuce does she expect me to dine in?"

With a sheepish grin Mackenzie pointed to something upon the bed which
the Count had hitherto taken to be a rough species of quilt.

"She said you might like to wear that, sir."

The Count took it up.

"It appears to be a dressing-gown!" said he.

"She said, sir, your uncle was wont to dine in it."

"Ah! It's one of my poor uncle's eccentricities, is it? Very nice of
Miss Wallingford; but all the same I think you can put out my evening
clothes for me; and, I say, get me some hot water and a couple of
towels that feel a little less like sandpaper, will you? By the way--one
moment, Mackenzie!--you needn't mention anything of this to Miss
Wallingford. I'll explain it all to her myself."

It is remarkable how the presence or absence of a few of the very minor
accessories of life will affect the humor even of a man so ess