Gaston, smiling, said that he would only be a buffalo fretting on a
chain.

Lord Faramond replied:

"And why the chain?" He followed this up by saying: "It is but a case of
playing lion-tamer down there. Have one little gift all your own, know
when to impose it, and you have the pleasure of feeling that your fingers
move a great machine, the greatest in the world--yes the very greatest.
There is Little Grapnel just vacant: the faithful Glynn is gone. Come:
if you will, I'll send my secretary to-morrow morning-eh?"

"You are not afraid of the buffalo, sir?"

Lord Faramond's fingers touched his arm, drummed it "My greatest need--
one to roar as gently as the sucking-dove."

"But what if I, not knowing the rules of the game, should think myself
on the corner of the veldt or in an Indian's tepee, and hit out?"

"You do not carry derringers?"

He smiled. "No; but--"

He glanced down at his arms.

"Well, well; that will come one day, perhaps!" Lord Faramond paused,
abstracted, then added: "But not through you. Good-bye, then, good-bye.
Little Grapnel in ten days!"