Imp?"

"I only wanted to know, you know," he murmured.

Therewith we walked on in silence and I fell to dreaming of Lisbeth
again, of how she had sighed, of the look in her eyes as she turned to
me with her answer trembling on her lips--the answer which the Imp had
inadvertently cut short. In this frame of mind I drew near to that
corner of the garden where she had stood with me, that quiet, shady
corner, which henceforth would remain enshrined within my memory for
her sake which--

I stopped suddenly short at the sight of two figures--one in the cap
and apron of a waiting maid and the other in the gorgeous plush and
cold braid of a footman; and they were standing upon the very spot
where Lisbeth and I had stood, and in almost the exact attitude--it was
desecration. I stood stock still despite the Imp's frantic tugs at my
coat all other feelings swallowed up in one of half-amused resentment.
Thus the resplendent footman happened to turn his head, presently
espied me, and removing his plush-clad arm from the waist of the trim
maid-servant, and doubling his fists, strode towards us with a truly
terrible mien.

"And w'ot might your game be?" he inquired, with that supercilious air
inseparable to plush and gold braid; "oh, I know your kind, I do--I
know yer!"

"Then, fellow," quoth I, "I know not thee, by Thor, I swear it and Og
the Terrible, King of Bashan!"

"'Ogs is it?" said he indignantly, "don't get trying to come over me
with yer 'ogs; no nor yet yer fellers! The question is, wo't are you
'anging round 'ere for?" Now, possibly deceived by my pacific
attitude, or inspired by the bright eyes of the trim maid-servant, he
seized me, none too gently, by the collar, to the horrified dismay of
the Imp.

"Nay, but I will, give thee moneys--"

"You are a-going to come up to the 'ouse with me, and no blooming
nonsense either; d'ye 'ear?"

"Then must I needs smite thee for a barbarous dog--hence--base
slave--begone!" Wherewith I delivered what is technically known in
"sporting" circles as a "right hook in the ear," followed by a "left
swing to the chin," and my assailant immediately disappeared behind a
bush, with a flash of pink silk calves and buckled shoes. Then, while
the trim maidservant filled the air with her lamentations, the imp and
I ran hot-foot for the wall, over which I bundled him neck and crop,
and we set off pell-mell along the river-path.

"Oh, Uncle Dick," he panted, "how--how fine you are