Then Colonel Schmoff bowed, never yet having spoken a word in Harry’s hearing, and our friend Doodles with glib volubility told Harry how intimate he was with Archie, and how he knew Sir Hugh, and how he had met Lady Clavering, and how “doosed” glad he was to meet Harry himself on this present occasion.

“And now, my boys, we’ll set down,” said the count.  “There’s just a little soup, printanier; yes, they can make soup here; then a cut of salmon—­and after that the beefsteak.  Nothing more.  Schmoff, my boy, can you eat beefsteak?”

Schmoff neither smiled nor spoke, but simply bowed his head gravely, and sitting down, arranged with slow exactness his napkin over his waistcoat and lap.

“Captain Boodle, can you eat beefsteak,” said the count; “Blue Posts’ beefsteak?”

“Try me,” said Doodles.  “That’s all.  Try me.”

“I will try you, and I will try Mr. Clavering.  Schmoff would eat a horse if he had not a bullock, and a piece of jackass if he had not a horse.”

“I did eat a horse in Hamboro’ once.  We was besieged.”

So much said Schmoff, very slowly, in a deep bass voice, speaking from the bottom of his chest, and frowning very heavily as he did so.  The exertion was so great that he did not repeat it for a considerable time.

“Thank God we are not besieged now,” said the count, as the soup was handed round to them.  “Ah, Albert, my friend, that is good soup; very good soup.  My compliments to the excellent Stubbs.  Mr. Clavering, the excellent Stubbs is the cook.  I am quite at home here, and they do their best for me.  You need not fear you will have any of Schmoff’s horse.”

This was all very pleasant, and Harry Clavering sat down to his dinner prepared to enjoy it; but there was a sense about him during the whole time that he was being taken in and cheated, and that the count would cheat him and actually escape away from him on that evening without his being able to speak a word to him.  They were dining in a public room, at a large table which they had to themselves, while others were dining at small tables round them.  Even if Schmoff and Boodle had not been there, he could hardly have discussed Lady Ongar’s private affairs in such a room as that.  The count had brought him there to dine in this way with a premeditated purpose of throwing him over, pretending to give him the meeting that had been asked for, but intending that it should pass by and be of no avail.  Such was Harry’s belief; and he resolved that, though he might have to seize Pateroff by the tails of his coat, the count should not escape him without having been forced at any rate to hear what he had to say.  In the meantime the dinner went on very pleasantly.

“Ah,” said the count, “there is no fish like salmon early in the year; but not too early.  And it should come alive from Grove, and be cooked by Stubbs.”

“And eaten by me,” said Boodle.

“Under my auspices,” said the count, “and then all is well.  Mr. Clavering, a little bit near the head?  Not care about any particular part?  That is wrong.  Everybody should always learn what is the best to eat of everything, and get it if they can.”