Clementina

"We will give them a month," said Wogan, who was conjecturing at the

motive of this order from the Court of France. "No doubt we are

suspected. I never had a hope that we should not be. The Court of

France, you see, can do no less than forbid us, but I should not be

surprised if it winks at us on the sly. We will give them a month.

Colonel Lally is a friend of mine and a friend of the King. We will get

an abatement of that order, so that not one of you shall be cashiered."

"I don't flinch at that," said Misset, "but the secret's out."

"Then we must use the more precautions," said Wogan. He had no doubt

whatever that somehow he would bring the Princess safely out of her

prison to Bologna. It could not be that she was born to be wasted.

Misset, however, was not so confident upon the matter.

"A strange, imperturbable man is Charles Wogan," said he to Gaydon and

O'Toole the same evening. "Did you happen by any chance to cast your eye

over the paper I had my hand on?"

"I did not," said Gaydon, in a great hurry. "It was a private letter, no

doubt."

"It was poetry. There's no need for you to hurry, my friend. It was more

than mere poetry, it was in Latin. I read the first line on the page,

and it ran, 'Te, dum spernit, arat novus accola; max ubi cultam--'"

Gaydon tore his arm away from Misset. "I'll hear no more of it," he

cried. "Poetry is none of my business."

"There, Dick, you are wrong," said O'Toole, sententiously. Both Misset

and Gaydon came to a dead stop and stared. Never had poetry so strange

an advocate. O'Toole set his great legs apart and his arms akimbo. He

rocked himself backwards and forwards on his heels and toes, while a

benevolent smile of superiority wrinkled across his broad face from ear

to ear. "Yes, I've done it," said he; "I've written poetry. It is a

thing a polite gentleman should be able to do. So I did it. It wasn't in

Latin, because the young lady it was written to didn't understand Latin.

Her name was Lucy, and I rhymed her to 'juicy,' and the pleasure of it

made her purple in the face. There were to have been four lines, but

there were never more than three and a half because I could not think of

a suitable rhyme to O'Toole. Lucy said she knew one, but she would never

tell it me."