one of those indiscretions to which a gay spirit is
always prone, but which, to do him justice, seldom
sullied his own record as a successful adventurer. At
an hour considerably past midnight, hearing an
excited summons from the Baron's bedroom, he laid down
his toothbrush and hastened across the passage, to
find the new peer in a crimson dressing-gown of quilted
silk gazing enthusiastically at a lithograph that hung
upon the wall.

"See!" he cried gleefully, "here is my own
ancestor. Bonker, I feel I am Tollyvoddle indeed."

The print which had inspired this enthusiasm
depicted a historical but treasonable Lord Tulliwuddle
preparing to have his head removed.

Giving it a droll look, the Count observed--

"Well, if it inspires you, my dear Baron, that's all
right. The omen would have struck me differently."

"Ze omen!" murmured the Baron with a start.

It required all Bunker's tact to revive his ally's
damped enthusiasm, and even at breakfast next morning
he referred in a gloomy voice to various premonitions
recorded in the history of his family, and the
horrible consequences of disregarding them.