Paul cast a quick glance at his companion. "Yes, sir--that is, we will say, in the case of a lady of inferior rank--or even birth, the King of these parts can, on her marriage with a nobleman--blank it all!--ennoble her father and mother, and their fathers and mothers, though they've been dead, or as good as dead, for years." "I am afraid that's a slight exaggeration of the rare custom of granting 'noble lands,' or estates that carry hereditary titles with them," said Paul, more emphatically, perhaps, than the occasion demanded. "Fact, sir--George there knows it all," said Pendleton. "He gets it from the other servants. I don't speak the language, sir, but HE does. Picked it up in a year." "I must compliment him on his fluency, certainly," said Paul, looking at George. The old servant smiled, and not without a certain condescension. "Yes, sah; I don' say to a scholar like yo'self, sah, dat I'se got de grandmatical presichion; but as fah, sah--as fah as de IDIOTISMS ob de language goes. Sah--it's gen'lly allowed I'm dar! As to what Marse Harry says ob de ignobling ob predecessors, I've had it, sah, from de best autority, sah--de furst, I may say, sah--de real prima facie men--de gemplum ob his Serene Highness, in de korse eb ordinary conversashun, sah." "That'll do, George," said Pendleton, with paternal brusqueness. "Run on ahead and tell that blank chamberlain that Mr. Hathaway is one of my friends--and have supper accordingly." As the negro hastened away he turned to Paul: "What he says is true: he's the most popular man or boy in all Strudle Bad--a devilish sight more than his master--and goes anywhere where I can't go. Princes and princesses stop and talk to him in the street; the Grand Duke asked permission to have him up in his carriage at the races the other day; and, by the Eternal, sir, he gives the style to all the flunkeys in town!" "And I see, he dresses the character," observed Paul. "His own idea--entirely. And, by Jove! he proves to be right. You can't do anything here without a uniform. And they tell me he's got everything correct, down to the crest on the buttons." They walked on in silence for a few moments, Pendleton retaining a certain rigidity of step and bearing which Paul had come to recognize as indicating some uneasiness or mental disturbance on his part. Hathaway had no intention of precipitating the confidence of his companion. Perhaps experience had told him it would come soon enough. So he spoke carelessly of himself. How the need of a year's relaxation and change had brought him abroad, his journeyings, and, finally, how he had been advised by his German physician to spend a few weeks at Strudle Bad preparatory to the voyage home. Yet he was perfectly aware that the colonel from time to time cast a furtive glance at his face. "And YOU," he said in conclusion--"when do you intend to return to California?"