It was with some consternation that he noticed that not only the duke, but the whole party seemed to derive genuine amusement from his threat. "Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the little terrorist in his window-rattling tones. "The police! How rich! How exquisite! When a man insults a Salolja he does not call in the police, but the undertaker." Mr. Leo's bronzed face had now that greenish tinge so much the fashion in modern sculpture. "How are you going to send for your police?" laughed the duke, emphasizing his question by a playful prick in Mr. Leo's biceps. "Before you touch the bell or the door-handle you are a dead man." Mr. Leo looked as though he reluctantly accepted the probability. "Now, your grace will go down on your knees, won't you, you absurd hippopotamus, and make your humble confession and apology for having treated disrespectfully a Grandee of Spain and a Salolja, before you pay the penalty of your mistake." There was a painful flourish of the rapier, and a gentle stab on the lobe of Mr. Leo's large right ear. With a howl he went down on his knees, with another he begged for mercy, and it was a third howl of a very different character which made the duke and the other men turn to the window, at which some one stood rattling. [Illustration: "With a howl he went down on his knees, and with another he begged for mercy."] The ever-alert duke opened it, as though nothing unusual were occurring, giving entrance to Miss Leo, who with a manly stride came in only to stand dumfounded before the abject spectacle of her brother's abasement. "Carnaby!" she cried in a voice calculated to put fire into a lump of wet clay. "You great oaf! What fool's game is this?" The duke explained. "It is simply the result of a slight personal difference between his grace and my humble self." "Get up, you great booby!" Lalage commanded, naturally thinking that the slight personal difference between the two men should have reversed their positions. "Stay where you are," cried the duke in his most stentorian tones. And Mr. Leo stayed. "Quorn! At last!" The cry came in a tone of menacing rapture from Lalage who had now found time to glance round the table. "Hold on!" was that nobleman's chilling response, as he rose and stretched out a fending hand in front of him. "My Quorn!" repeated Miss Leo with native tenacity. "Quorn?" cried the duke in a voice of puzzled exasperation, "Quorn again in that quarter. I get tired of this Quorn here, Quorn there." "This is Lord Quorn," Lalage declared with an exultation which, considering the position her champion occupied at the moment, was scarcely justified. "So? Are you sure?" the duke demanded searchingly. "Sure? I knew him in Australia. I have come over to marry him," was the convincing answer. "So?" The fiery little Castilian turned to Quorn. "You marry this lady, eh?" "No," he returned, ungallantly. "I'm hanged if I do." "Carnaby!" cried his sister in a ringing voice. "You hear that?"