“You won’t have it?”

“I have neither spirits nor inclination for turning bear-leader, and it is not a position I wish to undertake.”

“What position would you like?” cried Jock.  “You could take that rifle you got for Algeria, and make the Magyars open their eyes.  Seriously, Allen, it is the right thing at the right time.  You know Miss Ogilvie always said the position was quite different for an English person among these foreigners.”

“Who, like natives, are all the same nation,” quietly observed Allen.

“For that matter,” said Jock, “wasn’t it in Hungarie that the beggar of low degree married the king’s daughter?  There’s precedent for you, Ali!”

Allen had taken up the letter, and after glancing it slightly over, said—-

“Thanks, Vice-principal, but I won’t stand in the light of your other aspirants.”

“What can you want better than this?” cried Jock.  “By the time the law business is over, one may look in vain for such a chance.  It is a new country too, and you always said you wanted to know how those fellows with long-tailed names lived in private life.”

Both brothers talked for an hour, till they hoped they had persuaded him that even for the most miserable and disappointed being on earth the Hungarian castle might prove an interesting variety, and they left him at last with the letter before him, undertaking to write and make further inquiries.

The next day, however, just as Jock was about to set forth, intending, as far as might be, to keep him up to the point, Bobus made his appearance, and scornfully held out an envelope.  There was the letter, and therewith these words:—-

“On consideration, I recur to my first conclusion, that this situation is out of the question.  To say nothing of the injury to my health and nerves from agitation and suspense, rendering me totally unfit for drudgery and annoyance, I cannot feel it right to place myself in a situation equivalent to the abandonment of all hope.  It is absurd to act as if we were reduced to abject poverty, and I will never place myself in the condition of a dependent.  This season has so entirely knocked me up that I must at once have sea air, and by the time you receive this I shall be on my way to Ryde for a cruise in the Petrel.”

“His health!” cried Bobus, his tone implying three notes, scarcely of admiration.

“Well, poor old Turk, he is rather seedy, " said Jock.  “Can’t sleep, and has headaches!  But ’tis a regular case of having put him to flight!”

“Well, I’ve done with him,” said Bobus, “since there’s a popular prejudice against flogging, especially one’s elder brother.  This is a delicate form of intimation that he intends doing the dolce at mother’s expense.”

“The poor old chap has been an ornamental appendage so long that he can’t make up his mind to anything else,” said Jock.

“He is no worse off than the rest of us,” said Bobus.