d
Shakespeare like Mr. Burke or Dr. Johnson. He may have been M. Caron de
Beaumarchais, for I never saw him, or a soothsayer, or Cagliostro the
magician, for he guessed my name.'

"'Guessed your name!' we cried, for the story was out of the ordinary.

"'Just that,' answered he, and repeated some damned verse I never heard,
with Horatio in it, and made them all laugh."

John Paul and I looked at each other in astonishment, and we, too,
laughed heartily. It was indeed an odd coincidence.

His Lordship continued: "'Well, be that as it may,' said Horry, 'he was
an able man of sagacity, this sea-captain, and, like many another, had
a penchant for being a gentleman. But he was more of an oddity than
Hertford's beast of Gevaudan, and was dressed like Salvinio, the monkey
my Lord Holland brought back from his last Italian tour.'"

I have laughed over this description since, my dears, and so has John
Paul. But at that time I saw nothing funny in it, and winced with him
when Comyn repeated it with such brutal unconsciousness. However, young
Englishmen of birth and wealth of that day were not apt to consider the
feelings of those they deemed below them.

"Come to your story. Comyn," I cut in testily.

But his Lordship missed entirely the cause of my displeasure.

"Listen to him!" he exclaimed good-naturedly. "He will hear of nothing
but Miss Dolly. Well, Richard, my lad, you should have seen her as Horry
went on to tell that you had been taken from Maryland, with her head
forward and her lips parted, and a light in those eyes of hers to make
a man fall down and worship. For Mr. Lloyd, or some one in your Colony,
had written of your disappearance, and I vow bliss Dorothy has not been
the same since. Nor have I been the only one to remark it," said he,
waving off my natural protest at such extravagance. "We have talked of
you more than once, she and I, and mourned you for dead. But I am off
my course again, as we sailors say, captain. Horry was describing how
Richard lifted little Goble by one hand and spun all the dignity out
of him, when Miss Manners broke in, being able to contain herself no
longer.

"'An American, Mr. Walpole, and from Maryland?' she demanded. And the
way she said it made them all look at her.

"'Assurement, mademoiselle,' replied Horry, in his cursed French;
and perhaps you know him. He would gladden the heart of Frederick of
Prussia, for he stands six and three if an inch. I took such a fancy to
th