“Well, I know him, I reckon,” drawled out Quackinboss; “and I rayther suspect you owe this here politeness to _my_ company. Yes, sir!” said he, half fiercely, to O'Shea, upon whose face a sort of incredulous smile was breaking,--“yes, sir!” “Being our own countryman, sir,--an Englishman,--I suspect,” said Mr. Morgan, with warmth, “that the hospitality has been extended to us on wider grounds.” “But why should we dispute about the matter at all?” mildly remarked Mrs. Morris. “Let us say yes, and be grateful.” “There's good sense in that,” chimed in Mosely, “and I second it.” “Carried with unanimity,” said O'Shea, as, turning to the servant, he muttered something in broken French. “Well, I'm sure, I never!” mumbled Quackinboss to himself; but what he meant, or to what new circumstance in his life's experience he alluded, there is unhappily no explanation in this history; but he followed the rest with a drooping head and an air of half-melancholy resignation that was not by any means unusual with him. CHAPTER V. ACCIDENTS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES When the young Marquis had made his escape from sightseeing, and all its attendant inflictions, he was mainly bent on what he would himself have called being “very jolly,”--that is to say, going his own way unmolested, strolling the road he fancied, and following out his own thoughts. Not that these same thoughts absolutely needed for their exercise or development any extraordinary advantages of solitude and retirement. He was no deep-minded sage, revolving worlds to come,--no poet, in search of the inspiring influence of nature,--no subtle politician, balancing the good and evil of some nice legislation. He was simply one of those many thousand England yearly turns out from her public schools of fine, dashing, free-hearted, careless boys, whose most marked feature in character is a wholesome horror of all that is mean or shabby. Less than a year before, he had been a midshipman in her Majesty's gun-boat “Mosquito;” the death of an elder brother had made him a Marquis, with the future prospect of several thousands a year.