Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/398

 "Mosha the Viscount Thingamy de Something-or-other? I dare say!"

"Have you any objection?"

"Not the smallest. For all I care, yon are Robert Burns, or Napoleon Buonaparte, or anything from the Mother of the Gracchi to Balaam's Ass. But I knew you first as Mr. Ducie; and you may take it that I'm Mr. Don't see." He reached up a hand towards the valve-string.

"What are you proposing to do?"

"To descend."

"What?—back to the enclosure?" "Scarcely that, seeing that we have struck a northerly current, and are travelling at the rate of thirty miles an hour, perhaps. That's Broad Law to the south of us, as I make it out."

"But why descend at all?"

"Because it sticks in my head that some one in the crowd called you by a name that wasn't Ducie; and by a title, for that matter, which didn't sound like "Viscount." I took it at the time for a constable's trick; but I begin to have my strong doubts." The fellow was dangerous. I stooped nonchalantly, on pretence of picking up a plaid; for the air had turned bitterly cold of a sudden.

"Mr. Byfield, a word in your private ear, if you will."

"As you please," said he, dropping the valve-string.

We leaned together over the breastwork of the car. "If I mistake not," I said, speaking low, "the name was Champdivers."

He nodded.

"The gentleman who raised that foolish but infernally risky cry was my own cousin, the Viscount de St. Yves. I give you my word of honour to that." Observing that