“Well, ’twas he found out all about you.  Having set his heart on going into the army, he must needs go into Shrewsbury to take lessons in fencing from a Captain Galsworthy he had heard of.  And it appears that during his very first bout with the captain he tried a botte that you had taught him.  The captain drops his point, and stares a moment, and then cries ’Ads my life!  The only man in the world that knows that botte besides myself is Humphrey Bold.  Where in the name of Beelzebub did you learn it?’ And so it all came out, and the whole story of the villainous doings of those Cluddes and Lawyer Vetch—­”

“Stay, sir,” I interrupted; “Mr. Vetch is a very dear friend of mine, and I would lay my life he is innocent of any share of the trickery that lost me my father’s lands.”

“Maybe, maybe:  I know the story of the will,” said Mr. Allardyce.  “Roger was wild with excitement when he came back, and nothing would satisfy him but that he must go to Bristowe and see if he could learn any news of you.  But he could learn nothing, and—­”

“My dear,” says Mistress Allardyce at this point, “you are keeping us waiting so long.  Lucy and I want to hear Mr. Bold.”

“That’s an extinguisher,” cries he with a jolly laugh.

“Light my pipe, Lucy, my dear; it will last a good half hour, and maybe that will be long enough for Mr. Bold’s story.”

But in truth he had smoked another couple of pipes before I had finished, and gave no heed to Susan when she appeared at the door and said that my meal was ready.  I have heard that a speaker’s eloquence depends much upon his hearers and the bond of sympathy betwixt him and them, and sure I spoke with a freedom that surprised me.  Certainly no man was ever better favored in his audience; Mr. Allardyce let his pipe go out more than once.  And the ladies hung on my words, Mistress Lucy sitting forward in her chair, her lips parted, her eyes kindling, and a ruddy glow suffusing her cheeks.  The room rang with Mr. Allardyce’s laughter when I described our march across country with the gagged Frenchmen, and I vow I could almost hear the beating of Mistress Lucy’s heart as I told of our fight with Duguay-Trouin.

When I had ended my tale, Mr. Allardyce tugged at the bell rope, crying: 

“Egad, we must drink the health of Mr. Midshipman Bold,” and when Susan appeared, with surprising celerity (I believe the minx had been listening at the door) he roared at her for keeping me waiting so long a-fasting.

“And what do you think of that, Lucy?” he cries, turning to his niece.  “Didst ever hear such a tale of ups and downs and derring do?”

“I love Joe Punchard,” said Mistress Lucy, and that set her uncle a-laughing again, though I confess it somewhat mystified me.

My kind friends insisted that I should stay the night with them, and we sat up talking to a late hour.  I longed to ask how things stood in the matter of the guardianship of Mistress Lucy, but the subject was ignored by tacit consent so long as the ladies were in the room.  When they had retired, however, Mr. Allardyce drew his chair alongside of mine, and said: