Without any further conversation, we went doggedly through “_Drake’s Drum_” and “_The Two Grenadiers_.” I simply wasn’t going to let Uncle Albert Waters, left in the dining-room with Major Montresor, imagine that his nephew and I had gone into the den to—to make anything but—music for one single instant that evening. Let them hear for themselves that we were busy at the piano the whole time! They could hear well enough through the wall of the dining-room—— No! Apparently they couldn’t hear well enough. For no sooner had we come to the end of those bars of the “_Marseillaise_” that conclude the Grenadier song, than the door of the den was thrown open and in walked those two other men. Uncle Albert, of course in advance, pranced up to the piano, thumped his fist into the open palm of the other hand, leaned over the piano towards us, then, in a solemn, confidential, impressive tone of voice, he brought out—one word. It was the word: “_Wedded!_” “What?” rapped out the Governor, sharply wheeling round. And I couldn’t help gasping, wondering if this old gentleman had suddenly come under some hallucination about our being more, even, than merely “engaged.” “Yes. ‘Wedded,’” repeated Uncle Albert, raising his voice again to its normal blare. “You know!—The fellow and the girl! That first-rate picture by Millais or Holman Hunt or one of ’em. Anyhow, you know it. She’s got her head resting right back against the young chap’s shoulder, like this”— (Unsuccessful imitation of the pose of Leighton’s model by Uncle Albert against the piano.) —“And he’s lifting her hand to his mouth—_you_ know. That’s the one. That’s the name I was puzzling over half through dinner, and it only just dawned upon me just as I finished my cigar. I had to come in and tell you. And, if we’re not _de trop_,” added that appalling old man, settling down like a big collapsible toy in one of the huge arm-chairs, “we’d like to hear just one tune in here. ‘If he’s only _singing_,’ as I said to the Major, ‘he might just as well have company by as not, and I’m fond of a good song after dinner!’ So now, Billy, what have you got there? D’you know that A 1 thing—ah, what is it? What a man I am for forgetting names! Something bandy—not Bandy-legs——” “Ha!” Major Montresor, from the other big chair, came to the rescue. “‘_The Bando-lero_’!” “That’s it! Know it, William? ‘I _am_ the Bando-lero!’” vociferated Uncle Albert, “‘the—something—Bando-lero——’” “I know it,” said my employer, with restraint, “but I haven’t got it in the house!” It was my turn to suppress a smile as I remembered how, in my nursery-days, I’d defined “_a bandolero_” as “_a person with a very loud voice_,” just as naturally as I used to think that “_a Radical_” meant “_a dreadfully wicked man_.” It was the very song that I could imagine Uncle Albert enjoying singing himself. A pity his nephew didn’t happen to have it in the house!