There was a man in the party at Blairbinkie who, before we were at war, talked _fervidly_ of what he should do for his country if trouble came. I had not liked Hector Swankington the least little bit before that, but when he said that, in the event of war, he would raise a troop at his own expense, call it "Swankington's Horse" and lead it himself "wherever the fighting was hottest," I thought I'd not done him justice. So I listened to him and approved and encouraged the plan. And then the storm burst and we all scattered. The other morning I met him in the Park when I was taking my early walk. He asked if I would dine with him some evening at the "Iridescent," and I said it was not a time for dining at restaurants. "No," he agreed, "it certainly isn't now all the French cooks are gone; and what an idiotic idea this is about reducing the number of courses at dinner! Silly rot, I call it!" I ignored this and asked, "What about 'Swankington's Horse'?" "Oh! that's all off," he said huffily. "I wrote to the authorities about raising the troop, asked what State recognition I should get, and enclosed a drawing of the hat I meant to wear as leader--a ripping scheme, turned up at one side and with a bunch of feathers. All the answer I got was a few brief words of acknowledgment and a request to set about it at once and report myself somewhere or other. Not a word of the State recognition I was to receive, and the drawing of the hat returned with 'Not approved' scrawled across it. So I've chucked the whole business. And now don't let us talk of _that_ any more!" I gave him my freezing look (you've never seen my freezing look, dearest--it's _terrible_!) and I said with a little calm deadly manner that I very, _very_ seldom use, "I've no wish to talk to you of _that_--or of anything else--ever again." And I left him. The party at Blairbinkie that scattered almost as soon as it assembled was by way of being a farewell to the old place, for the Clackmannans had virtually sold it to a Mr. Spragg, of Pittsburg. He was going to have the old castle taken across in bits and set up again in Pennsylvania; and he was taking all the family portraits, the mausoleum, the old trees in the park and the stags at a valuation, as well as the village itself with all its cottages and people, in order that the castle might have its proper _setting_ out there. There were two more things he wanted included in the bargain--a village idiot and a family ghost ("hereditary spectre," he called it). Ah, my dear! all this belongs to the happy old days of a hundred years ago, when we were all three or four weeks younger. The man from Pittsburg, so far from being able to buy Blairbinkie, hardly knows where to look for his next meal, and as for shipping castles and trees and mausoleums and village idiots and family ghosts across the Atlantic he only wishes he could get _himself_ across, even if he had to work his passage!