“And are earls and countesses just the same?” she asked with a disappointed air. “Just the same, only worse. They're so ordinary you can't pick them out from common misters and missuses.” Saying this I rose, for we had finished our dessert, and proposed coffee in the lounge. There we found Colonel Bunnion at so wilful a loose end that I could not find it in my heart to refuse him an introduction to Lola. He manifested his delight by lifting the skirt of his dinner-jacket with his hands and rising on his spurs like a bantam cock. I left her to him for a moment and went over to say a civil word to the Misses Bostock of South Shields. I regret to say I noticed a certain frigidity in their demeanour. The well-conducted man in South Shields does not go out one night with a revolver tucked away in the pocket of his dress-suit, and turn up the next evening with a striking-looking lady with bronze hair. Such goings-on are seen on the stage in South Shields in melodrama, and they are the goings-on of the villain. In the eyes of the gentle ladies my reputation was gone. I was trying to rehabilitate myself when the chasseur brought me a telegram. I asked permission to open it, and stepped aside. The words of the telegram were like a ringing box on the ears. “Tell me immediately why Lola has joined you in Algiers. --KYNNERSLEY.” Not “Dale,” mark you, as he has signed himself ever since I knew him in Eton collars, but “Kynnersley.” Why has Lola joined you? Why have you run off with Lola? What's the reason of this treacherous abduction? Account for yourself immediately. Stand and deliver. I stood there gaping at the words like an idiot, my blood tingling at the implied accusation. The peremptoriness of it! The impudence of the boy! The wild extravagance of the idea! And yet, while my head was reeling with one buffet a memory arose and gave me another on the other side. I remembered the preposterous attitude in which Dale had found us when he rushed from Berlin into Lola's drawing-room.