hat launched
a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? O Troy!
O Helen! You'll permit me to add, with a glance at our friend
Priske's predicament, O Dido! At five shillings _per diem_ I realize
the twin ambitions of a life-time and combine the supercargo with the
buck. Well, well! _cherchez la femme!_"

"You pronounce it 'share-shay?'" inquired Mr. Badcock. "Now I have
seen it spelt the same as in 'church.'"

"The same as in ch--?" Mr. Fett fixed him with a glassy but
reproachful eye. "Badcock, you are premature, premature and
indelicate."

Here my father interposed and, heading the talk back to the
Methodists, soon had the Vicar and the little pawnbroker in full
cry--parson and clerk antiphonal, "matched in mouth like bells"--on
church discipline; which gave him opportunity, while Nat and I at our
end of the table exchanged the converse and silences of friendship,
to confer with my Uncle Gervase and run over a score of parting
instructions on the management of the estate, the ordering of the
household, and, in particular, the entertainment of our Trappist
guests. Perceiving with the corner of his eye that we two were
restless to leave the table, he pushed the bottle towards us.

"My lads," said he, "when the drinking tires let the talk no longer
detain you."

We thanked him, and with a glance at Mr. Fett--who had fallen asleep
with his head on his arms--stepped out upon the moonlit terrace.
I waited for Nat to speak and give me a chance to have it out with
him, if he doubted (as he must, methought) my father's sanity.
But he gazed over the park at our feet, the rolling shadows of the
woodland, the far estuary where one moonray trembled, and stretching
out both hands drew the spiced night-air into his lungs with a sob.

"O Prosper!"

"You are wondering where to find your room?" said I, as he turned and
glanced up at the grey glimmering facade. "The simplest way is to
pick up the first lantern you see in the hall, light it, walk
upstairs, enter what room you choose and take possession of its bed.
You have five hours to sleep, if you need sleep. Or shall I guide
you?"

"No," said he; "the first is the only way in this enchanted house.
But I was thinking that by rights, while we are standing here, those
windows should blaze with lights and break forth with the noise of
dancing and minstrelsy. To such a castle, high against such a velvet
night as this, would Sir Lancelot come, or Sir Gaw