"It looked like it when I left the room," said he; "the Mater was very near rolling on the oilcloth, and the Governor dancing and foaming from his mouth. What an awfully old ass you have been, JAB, to go and blurt out everything in print--about your breach of promise case, and getting to know us, and--worst of all--being merely a bogey prince. Naturally, we don't care about being made to look fools. The dear old Mater, you know, is one of those simple, trusting natures that, if they once discover they have been taken in by a sham title, why, they kick up the row of a deuce! And, as for the Governor, he's the sort of old retiring chap that has a downright loathing of publicity, when it makes him ridiculous. If he came across you just now, there's really no saying what he mightn't do. He's such a devilishly hot-tempered old boy!" I did not comprehend the reasons for such exuberant anger, but, of course, young HOWARD insisted so urgently on physical dangers to myself if I delayed, that I hastened stealthily to my room by a backstair, and flinging my _paraphernalia_ with incredible despatch into a portmanteau, was so fortunate as to convey it out of the house without attracting the invidious attention of my host and hostess, who were probably still occupied in foaming and rolling upon the carpet like angry waves of the sea. Young HOWARD accompanied me to the station, though blaming me as the cause of his embroilment with his progenitors, who, it seems, had insisted--quite unjustly--that he must have known from the first that my nobility was merely a brevet rank; and Miss WEE-WEE bade me farewell with a soft and perfectly ladylike cordiality, being too grieved by my departure to make any allusion to the head and front of my offending. Now I am once more in London, paying daily visits of several hours to the office of my solicitor, in order to assist him in the preparation of my brief. [Illustration: BABOO CHUCKERBUTTY RAM.] The other day, Baboo JALPANYBHOY and Baboo CHUCKERBUTTY RAM attended for the purpose of arranging their evidence, when I regret to say the former made a rather paltry exhibition of himself, being declared by Mr SMARTLE himself to be totally incompetent to prove anything whatever material to the case, and I am therefore resolved to refuse him admission to the witness-box. I am more hopeful of Mr CHUCKERBUTTY RAM, who, I think, after diligent coaching from myself, may be induced to restrain his natural garrulity, and speak no more than is set down for him, which is simply that I have already, in his presence, contracted matrimony with a juvenile native, and that the laws of my country entitle me to marry several more.