"Some day I may be an hereditary legislator. At present I'm a drone. I fish, shoot birds, and hunt foxes, and once a year I attend a cricket match. Birds are more suited to the bore of my gun than elephants. If I had a Maxim I might tackle elephants. I am in receipt of an income of three thousand pounds sterling a year from my father, who refuses to increase the amount. I am otherwise well satisfied with the universe. "My record last year was: Birds............ Fishes........... Foxes ..........." "I've left space for the mortality returns, and any note you may wish to add," said the secretary courteously. "Kindly fill in the figures, and initial the sheet if you find it correct. Your name will not appear if Mr. Pilgrim makes use of the information." Lord Roker referred to his pocket-book for statistics, and then inserted the figures required. The note he added was: "_De mortuis nil nisi bonum._" "Good kills, all of 'em," he explained. The secretary took the sheet and placed it methodically in a folio labelled "Britishers." "Is Mr. Pilgrim anywhere about?" Lord Roker asked. "Or Miss Pilgrim?" "I believe that Miss Pilgrim is in the grounds, but Mr. Pilgrim has gone across the moors in his motor to shed a tear at the residence of the late Charlotte Brontë. A wonderful man is the boss, my lord. It takes me all my time to file the information he gathers. It will be midnight before I have fixed Charlotte up." "Your hours are long," said Lord Roker, sympathetically. "They are; and they are getting longer. Your country is just waking up to the fact that John Pilgrim is here. We had a big mail to-day. Outside proper business there were twenty begging letters from tramps and prodigals, eighteen asking for subscriptions, and two which we could not decipher. Four town councils mixed us up with Andrew Carnegie and wrote demanding Free Libraries. I reply to them all." "Then I won't trespass any longer on your time." Mr. Tullitt pulled out his watch. "Snakes!" he exclaimed. "I always have fifteen minutes' dumb-bell exercise now to keep me in form. Good-mornin', my lord." His visitor left him standing in position with his dumb-bells. Now when Lord Roker turned in his chair and first saw Miss Marion Pilgrim he was confounded. When she spoke--and to her beauty there was added an infinite charm of frankness and joy of life--he fell hopelessly in love. Only once before had this happened to him, and, singularly enough, she also was an American--a dark-eyed Boston girl he met in Rome. He had been refused because his position and his prospects rendered the match an impossibility--to her father; for he was not at that time heir to an earldom. Since then he had gone unscathed through the perils of many seasons in many capitals, only to be finally routed while in pursuit of the commonplace profession of a burglar.