"No, Marquis! there you are wrong," corrected Dormer Colville, with a sudden gravity, "for we have in Captain Clubbe the very man we want--one of the hardest to find in this chattering world--a man who will not say too much. If we can only make him say what we want him to say he will not ruin all by saying more. It is so much easier to say a word too much than a word too little. And remember he speaks French as well as English, though, being British, he pretends that he cannot." Monsieur de Gemosac turned to peer at his companion in the darkness. "You speak hopefully, my friend," he said. "There is something in your voice--" "Is there?" laughed Colville, who seemed elated. "There may well be. For that man has been saying things in that placid monotone which would have taken your breath away had you been able to understand them. A hundred times I rejoiced that you understood no English, for your impatience, Marquis, might have silenced him as some rare-voiced bird is silenced by a sudden movement. Yes, Marquis, there is a locket containing a portrait of Marie Antoinette. There are other things also. But there is one draw-back. The man himself is not anxious to come forward. There are reasons, it appears, here in Farlingford, why he should not seek his fortune elsewhere. To-morrow morning--" Dormer Colville rose and yawned audibly. It almost appeared that he regretted having permitted himself a moment's enthusiasm on a subject which scarcely affected his interests. "To-morrow morning I will see to it." CHAPTER VIII THE LITTLE BOY WHO WAS A KING The Reverend Septimus Marvin had lost his wife five years earlier. It was commonly said that he had never been the same man since. Which was untrue. Much that is commonly said will, on investigation, be found to be far from the truth. Septimus Marvin had, so to speak, been the same man since infancy. He had always looked vaguely at the world through spectacles; had always been at a loss among his contemporaries--a generation already tainted by that shallow spirit of haste which is known to-day as modernity--at a loss for a word; at a loss for a companion soul. He was a scholar and a learned historian. His companions were books, and he communed in spirit with writers who were dead and gone. Had he ever been a different man his circumstances would assuredly have been other. His wife, for instance, would in all human probability have been alive. His avocation might have been more suited to his capabilities. He was not intended for a country parish, and that practical, human comprehension of the ultimate value of little daily details, without which a pastor never yet understood his flock, was not vouchsafed to him.