“Well, you will at least admit I kept them in the theatre and got them out.” In the _foyer_ of the hotel Captain Raeburn was waiting, a broad hand outstretched to greet him. “You flirted with death better than anyone I’ve struck yet,” he said. “I estimate you have saved a hundred lives to-night, Mr. Cardomay. Are you big enough to accept an apology?” A flush of pride spread over Eliphalet’s rugose features. “I am small enough to be deeply flattered by it,” he replied, as he took the proffered hand. “Yet, after all, it was a simple enough matter. I had but to follow my training—to give them a few whiffs from the gas-works.” “I deserve it, Colonel,” Raeburn acknowledged, “and a good kicking besides. But look here, after all this, surely you’ll have a drink to-night.” Eliphalet smiled whimsically. “Why, yes,” he said, “I should enjoy a cup of cocoa very much.” “Have it your own way,” laughed Raeburn, and gave the order. Eliphalet divided the tails of his coat and sat himself comfortably on a cane chair. “Despite our earnest preparations, you never heard the new battle effects, after all.” “What I heard was pretty convincing, though!” “Ye—es! But still, it’s disappointing. Now, if you and your friend would accept a box for to-morrow night——” And Raeburn had the good grace to answer: “There is nothing I should enjoy more.” _PART II. AND A ROUGH COMPOUND_ CHAPTER VIII MORNICE JUNE Eliphalet Cardomay stretched himself luxuriously on a green-painted arm-chair by the Achilles Statue in Hyde Park. He was wearing a new broad-brimmed grey felt hat, and the seasonableness of his attire spread to a pair of dark felt spats, below which the bright spring sunshine reflected itself on the surface of his well-blacked boots. It was pleasing to lounge under the new-foliaged plane trees and watch fashionable London sedately disporting itself on the gravel paths—to see the riders cantering in the Row, and to hear the “clot-clot” and pleasant jingle of harness as the smart people drove by. Something in the pageantry of it all appealed to his dramatic sense. Piccadilly—the Strand—Oxford Street—awoke no sympathetic chords in his being—he was more at ease and happier in any of the great thoroughfares of Manchester, Leeds or Glasgow, but this great meeting-place of England’s noblest-born stirred him strangely.