Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/393

 contemplated the aëronaut over his glasses with a world of reproach.

"I take ye to witness, Mr. Byfield!"

Byfield mopped a perspiring brow.

"My dear sir," he stammered, "all a mistake—no fault of mine—explain presently"; then, as one catching at an inspiration, "Allow me to introduce you. Mr. Dalmahoy, Mr."

"My name is Sheepshanks," said the little man stiffly. "But you'll excuse me"

Mr. Dalmahoy interrupted with a playful cat-call.

"Hear, hear! Silence! 'His name is Sheepshanks. On the Grampian Hills his father kept his flocks—a thousand sheep'—and, I make no doubt, shanks in proportion. Excuse you, Sheepshanks? My dear sir! At this altitude one shank was more than we had a right to expect; the plural multiplies the obligation." Keeping a tight hold on his hysteria, Dalmahoy steadied himself by a rope and bowed.

"And I, sir,"—as Mr. Sheepshanks' thoroughly bewildered gaze travelled around and met mine—"I, sir, am the Vicomte Anne de Kéroual de St. Yves, at your service. I haven't a notion how or why you come to be here; but you seem likely to be an acquisition. On my part," I continued, as there leapt into my mind the stanza I had vainly tried to recover in Mrs. McRankine's sitting-room, "I have the honour to refer you to the inimitable Roman Flaccus—

—you have the Latin, sir?"

"Not a word." He subsided upon the pile of rugs and