At first the Earl showed signs of nodding, and said there was nothing to the purpose in all the historical curiosities at the outset, so that Louis, alarmed lest he should absolutely drop asleep, skipped all his favourite passages, and came at once to the results of the recent inquiries.  The Earl was roused.  Who could have learnt those facts?  That was telling—­well put, but how did he get hold of it.  The very thing he had said himself—­What Quarterly was it?  Surely the Christmas number was not out.  Hitherto Louis had kept his countenance and voice, but in an hiatus, where he was trying to extemporize, his father came to look over his shoulder to see what ailed the book, and, glancing upwards with a merry debonnaire face, he made a gesture as if convicted.

‘Do you mean that this is your own composition?’

‘I beg your pardon for the pious fraud!’

‘It is very good!  Excellently done!’ said Lord Ormersfield.  ’There are redundancies—­much to betray an unpractised hand—­but—­stay, let me hear the rest—­’ Very differently did he listen now, broad awake, attacking the logic of every third sentence, or else double shotting it with some ponderous word, and shaking his head at Utopian views of crime to be dried up at the fountain head.  Next, he must hear the beginning, and ruthlessly picked it to pieces, demolishing all the Vehme Gericht and Santissima Hermandad as irrelevant, and, when he had made Louis ashamed and vexed with the whole production, astonishing him by declaring that it would tell, and advising him to copy it out fair with these little alterations.

These little alterations would, as he was well aware, evaporate all the spirit, and though glad to have pleased his father, his perseverance quailed before the task; but he said no more than thank you.  The next day, before he had settled to anything, Lord Ormersfield came to his room, saying, ’You will be engaged with your more important studies for the next few hours.  Can you spare the paper you read to me last night?’

‘I can spare it better than you can read it, I fear,’ said Louis, producing a mass of blotted MS in all his varieties of penmanship, and feeling a sort of despair at the prospect of being brought to book on all his details.

His father carried it off, and they did not meet again till late in the day, when the first thing Louis heard was, ’I thought it worth while to have another opinion on your manuscript before re-writing it.  I tried to read it to Mrs. Ponsonby, but we were interrupted, and I left it with her.’

Presently after.  ’I have made an engagement for you.  Lady Conway wishes that you should go to luncheon with her to-morrow.  I believe she wants to consult you about some birth-day celebration.’

Louis was much surprised, and somewhat entertained.

‘When will you have the carriage?’ pursued the Earl.

‘Will not you come?’