h to have two pneumonic
children on his hands; and the vests slipped into the outfit.

The duke was resolved to give the affair the strongest possible air of
verisimilitude; and he engaged a governess, a Miss Belthrop, for
Pollyooly. That led to his engaging a nurse, Emily Gibbs, for the
Lump, though Pollyooly protested that it was quite unnecessary.

The duke was indeed falling more and more deeply in love with his
scheme the nearer it came to putting it into effect. On three
afternoons he came to coach Pollyooly in the topography of Ricksborough
Court and its gardens, and in the habits of Lady Marion Ricksborough.
He was astonished and impressed by her intelligence. He was called on
to tell her hardly a single thing twice. He spoke of it to the
Honourable John Ruffin with great respect.

Then on the tenth day after his first visit he came in a taxicab,
greatly excited, for them and their luggage, and drove them to Waterloo
Station. On the platform they found Emily Gibbs, in charge of
Lawrence, the duke's valet, awaiting them. She found favour in the
exigent eyes of Pollyooly, who let her take charge of the Lump without
a single anxious qualm. Emily Gibbs fell in love with him at first
sight.

Pollyooly, though all the while she kept a careful eye on him, left him
in the care of Emily Gibbs, till the train was actually outside London.
Then she took him into her corner and pointed out objects of interest
to him. She was convinced that he had made a great advance in
intelligence since his journey down to Pyechurch: not once did he hail
a sheep as a gee-gee. She promoted him to the use of his proper
Christian name, and called him Roger. The duke had grown calm once
more, and read a four-penny-half-penny magazine with every appearance
of absorbed interest.

In the motor car which carried them from Ricksborough station to the
court, Pollyooly insisted on having the Lump on her knee. Motor drives
did not come their way so often that she could bear to be parted from
him in an hour of such delight.

Once out of the peaceful seclusion of the railway carriage the duke's
excitement had returned; and now that the real ordeal was at hand, he
had grown uncommonly nervous. It may be that he was unused to deceit.
He had set Emily Gibbs beside the chauffeur that he might have
Pollyooly to himself; and all the way he poured jumbled instructions
into her ear in a fashion which would have brought her to the court
hopel