“‘But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood; Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres; Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end. ...’?” “By Jove! I say, El-Râmi, don’t look at me like that!” exclaimed Vaughan uneasily, backing away from a too close proximity to the brilliant flashing eyes and absorbed face of his companion, who had recited the lines with extraordinary passion and solemnity. El-Râmi laughed. “Did I scare you? Was I too much in earnest? I beg your pardon! True enough,--‘this eternal blazon must not be, to ears of flesh and blood!’ But, the ‘something after death’ was a peculiarly aggravating reality to that poor ghost, and Hamlet knew that it was so when he spoke of it as a mere ‘dread.’ Thus, as I say, he was inconsistent, or, rather, Shakespeare did not argue the case logically.” “You would make a capital actor,”--said Vaughan, still gazing at him in astonishment. “Why, you went on just now as if,--well, as if you meant it, you know.” “So I did mean it,” replied El-Râmi lightly--“for the moment! I always find _Hamlet_ a rather absorbing study; so will you, perhaps, when you are my age.” “Your age?” and Vaughan shrugged his shoulders. “I wish I knew it! Why, nobody knows it. You may be thirty or a hundred--who can tell?” “Or two hundred--or even three hundred?” queried El-Râmi, with a touch of satire in his tone;--“Why stint the measure of limitless time? But here comes our recalcitrant knave”--this, as the keeper of the cloak-room made his appearance from a side-door with a perfectly easy and unembarrassed air, as though he had done rather a fine thing than otherwise in keeping two gentlemen waiting his pleasure. “Let us get our coats, and be well away before the decree of Fate can be accomplished in making you the winner of the desirable Chester prize. It is delightful to conquer Fate--if one can!” His black eyes flashed curiously, and Vaughan paused in the act of throwing on his overcoat to look at him again in something of doubt and dread. At that moment a gay voice exclaimed: “Why, here’s Vaughan!--Freddie Vaughan--how lucky!” and a big handsome man of about two or three and thirty sauntered into the lobby from the theatre, followed by two ladies. “Look here, Vaughan, you’re just the fellow I wanted to see. We’ve left Hamlet in the thick of his fight, because we’re going on to the Somers’s ball,--will you come with us? And I say, Vaughan, allow me to introduce to you my friends--Mrs. Jabez Chester, Miss Idina Chester--Sir Frederick Vaughan.”