ght to it. He had made that under false
pretenses, too, believing money would come naturally to a king. Would
they find him out at once, or not until it was too late? He shudderingly
recalled a crisis in the ceremony of marriage where some one is invited
to make trouble, urged to come forward and say if there isn't some
reason why this man and this woman shouldn't be married at all. Could he
live through that? Suppose a policeman rushed in, crying, "I forbid the
banns! The man is an impostor!" He seemed to remember that banns were
often forbidden in novels. Then would he indeed be a thing for
contemptuous laughter.

Yet, in spite of this dismal foreboding, he was presently conscious of
an unusual sense of well-being. It had been growing since they stopped
for those eggs, in that fumed oak place. What about the Corsican? Better
have been him than no one! He would look at that tomb. Then he would
know. He was rather clinging to the idea of the Corsican. It gave him
courage. Still, if he could get out peacefully ...

He stepped lightly to the hall and was on the point of seizing his hat
when the flapper called down to him.

"You just perfectly don't leave this house again!"

"Not going to," he answered guiltily. "Looking to see what size hat I
wear. Fumed eggs," he concluded triumphantly.

He was not again left alone. The waster came back and supposed he would
do some golfing "over across."

Bean loathed golf and gathered the strange power to say so.

"Sooner be a mail-carrier than a golf-player," he answered stoutly.
"Looks more fun, anyway."

"_My_ word!" exclaimed the waster, "aren't you even keen on watching
it?"

"Sooner watch a lot of Italians tearing up a street-car track," Bean
persisted.

"Oh, come!" protested the waster.

"Like to have another fumed egg," said Bean.

"You've had one too many," declared the waster, knowing that no sober
man could speak thus of the sport of kings.

Grandma, the Demon, entered and portentously shook hands with him. She
seemed to have discovered that marriage was very serious.

"Fumed eggs," said Bean, regarding her shrewdly.

"What?" demanded Grandma.

"Fumed eggs, hundred p'cent efficient," he declared stoutly.

The Demon eyed him more closely.

"My grandmother smoked, too," said Bean, "but I never went in for it
much."

"U-u-u-mmm!" said the Demon. It was to be seen that she felt puzzled.

Breede slunk into the room, garbed in an unaccustomed frock coat.