Misset looked angrily at O’Toole, who was not at all disturbed.  Then he said, “Well, at all events, she gossips.  We cannot take her.  She would tell the whole truth of our journey at the first halt.”

“That’s true,” said O’Toole.

Then for the second time that evening he cried, “I have an idea.”

“Well?”

“We’ll not tell her the truth at all.  I doubt if she would come if we told it her.  Jenny very likely has never heard of her Highness the Princess, and I doubt if she cares a button for the King.  Besides, she would never believe but that we were telling her a lie.  No.  We’ll make up a probable likely sort of story, and then she’ll believe it to be the truth.”

“I have it,” cried Wogan.  “We’ll tell her that we are going to abduct an heiress who is dying for love of O’Toole, and whose merciless parents are forcing her into a loveless, despicable marriage with a tottering pantaloon.”

O’Toole brought his hand down upon the arm of the chair.

“There’s the very story,” he cried.  “To be sure, you are a great man, Charles.  The most probable convincing story that was ever invented!  Oh! but you’ll hear Jenny sob with pity for the heiress and Lucius O’Toole when she hears it.  It will be a bad day, too, for the merciless parents when they discover Jenny in her Highness’s bed.  She stands six feet in her stockings.”

“Six feet!” exclaimed Wogan.

“In her stockings,” returned O’Toole.  “Her height is her one vanity.  Therefore in her shoes she is six feet four.”

“Well, she must take her heels off and make herself as short as she can.”

“You will have trouble, my friend, to persuade her to that,” said O’Toole.

“Hush!” said Gaydon.  He rose and unlocked the door.  The doctor was knocking for admission below.  Gaydon let him in, and he dressed Wogan’s wounds with an assurance that they were not deep and that a few days’ quiet would restore him.

“I will sleep the night here if I may,” said Wogan, as soon as the doctor had gone.  “A blanket and a chair will serve my turn.”

They took him into Gaydon’s bedroom, where three beds were ranged.

“We have slept in the one room and lived together since your message came four days ago,” said Gaydon.  “Take your choice of the beds, for there’s not one of us has so much need of a bed as you.”

Wogan drew a long breath of relief.

“Oh! but it’s good to be with you,” he cried suddenly, and caught at Gaydon’s arm.  “I shall sleep to-night.  How I shall sleep!”

He stretched out his aching limbs between the cool white sheets, and when the lamp was extinguished he called to each of his three friends by name to make sure of their company.  O’Toole answered with a grunt on his right, Misset on his left, and Gaydon from the corner of the room.

“But I have wanted you these last three days!” said Wogan.  “To-morrow when I tell you the story of them you will know how much I have wanted you.”