If he could have spoken he might--or he might not--have told them. It might have amused him more to keep them in suspense. His great red grinning open mouth and shining teeth were full of joy. His fierce glass eyes glared upon them mischievously. It was almost worth while being shot and skinned for such a revenge as this! _He knew where the emerald was_.... It was in his right ear. They had taken him and shaken him with great indignity, but they had foolishly taken him up by the hind legs. One should never take a polar bear up in that way, especially when it is a bear who has been a prince in his own country of keen wind, low shining sun, and little dancing seas against the ice. They had shaken him, but they had shaken--oh, shame!--upside down, and the more they had shaken him, the more firmly had they wedged the emerald in his right ear, where it so snugly lay. He could have told them, and I have hastened to tell you. Then where, you ask me, does the detective fun come in? You shall see! * * * * * * * Far in the Eastern Wing where, mured in stone Arrived at by a passage cold that ran Along the North o' the House, and barred with iron As to its windows: also by a door Which leads from the considerable room Wherein are great receptions held at Paulings [An Antrum gaunt, abandoned, having only Upon its walls the Oils of dead de Bohuns (Pronounced Deboons) and sundry dusty sofas: The Room grandiloquently named the Ballroom], There stand the Servants' Quarters. It is there, That, ruled by their dread Queen, the Housekeeper, And by her Coadjutor King, the Butler, The serfs Boonesque repose. The Cook, the Chauffeur, The Kitchen Maids, the Footmen, and the Boy: And Lord! how many others! These that night-- That winter night of doom--held high discourse, Upon the EMERALD. Samuel had heard (While bearing in the tray of drinks, himself Arrayed in livery) how its disappearance Had flummoxed all the Toffs. "You bet your breeches!" Said he, to either sex, indifferent And indiscriminate. "You bet your breeches! Whoever's pinched it's got to cough it up! The Boss, he ain't Home Secretary, not For nothing!" and with that his tongue was still. Then spake young Gwendoline, the Tweeny Maid, "I pity Him or 'Er as 'as it!" Words Which, when she had them spoken, froze their souls-- Nor none more starkly than the Second Housemaid's, Unless it were the Boy's--and so to Bed. CHAPTER FOUR The majestic poise of the Nordic blood is nowhere seen in greater perfection than in that crown of our civilization, a modest English Country House. Here is there no class consciousness, here is there no class war. Each is in his or her own place, and there is peace through order.