‘Now then, where are you posting to?’ he asked, with an insolent good-humour. ‘This is a private room, and holds private company.’

‘I know that,’ I answered, ‘but it holds a friend of mine, whom I want to see and who wants to see me.’

The man laughed rudely. ‘Very likely,’ he said, ‘that the company in the Dolphin are friends of yours,’ and then, as I was still pressing forward, he put out his hand as if to stay me.

This angered me; and taking the knave by the collar, I swung him aside so briskly that he went staggering across the hall and brought up ruefully humped against a settle. Before he could come at me again the door of the Dolphin opened, and Captain Marmaduke appeared upon the threshold. He looked in some astonishment from the rogue scowling on the settle to me flushed with anger.

‘Heyday, lad,’ he said, ‘are you having a bout of fisticuffs to keep your hand in?’

‘This fellow,’ I said, ‘tried to hinder me from entering yonder room, and I did but push him aside out of my path.’

‘Hum!’ said Captain Marmaduke, ‘’twas a lusty push, and cleared your course, certainly. Well, well, I like you the better, lad, for not being lightly [Pg 70]balked in your business.’ And therewith he led me into the Dolphin.

[Pg 70]

There was a sea-coal fire in the grate, for the day was raw and the glow welcome. Beside the fire an elderly gentleman sat in an arm-chair. He had a black silk skull-cap on his head, and his face was wrinkled and his eyes were bright, and his face, now turned upon me, showed harsh. I knew of course that he was Lancelot’s other uncle, he who would never suffer that I should set foot within his gates. Indeed, his face in many points resembled that of his brother—as much as an ugly face can resemble a fair one. There was a likeness in the forehead and there was a likeness in the eyes, which were something of the same china-blue colour, though of a lighter shade, and with only cold unkindness there instead of the genial kindness of the Captain’s.

A man stood on the other side of the open fireplace, a man of about forty-five, of something over the middle height and marvellously well-built. He was clad in what, though it was not distinctly a seaman’s habit, yet suggested the ways of the sea, and there was a kind of foppishness about his rig which set me wondering, for I was used to a slovenly squalor or a slovenly bravery in 

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