Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/178

Rh were reported as Sheila, Lorna, and Giulia. He turned them up in the list and whistled. The owner of the Giulia was the Prince of Ragusa.

"This is getting relevant," said he.

The Prince of Ragusa, hereditary ruler of some ten square miles and fabulously wealthy, was known to the learned as a zealous archæologist. He was one of the half-dozen men in the world whose collection might contain a Hottentot Venus. But, unless his reputation belied him, he was very unlikely to know or care anything about a soubrette from Paris. And why should he send his Hottentot Venus to a girls' school?

"Still several unknown quantities," Reggie reflected. And yet there was the Hottentot Venus in the Tormouth school and there off Tormouth lay the Prince of Ragusa. "I think we'll make Brer Lomas sit up and take notice," said Reggie, and devoted himself to the composition of Latin prose. Thus:

"De academia sororis nonnihil timeo nec quid timean certe scio. Sunt qui conjurarint et fortasse in flagitium. Si quid improvisum vel mihi vel academiae eveniret principem de Ragusa et navem eius caperc oporteret."

This he wrote on telegraph forms, and with his own hand presented to the lady at the post office, who was justly horrified.

"But what language is it?" she protested.