His Lordship's Leopard: A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts
the river. I used to work round Philidelphy some, and I guess I could do the lingo."

[Pg 60]

"Give them to him," said Banborough. "I'll make it good to you."

"Well, take them, then," replied Spotts regretfully, handing their unwelcome companion the outfit which he produced from his bag, adding as he pointed to the woods: "Get in there and change quickly. We ought to be moving."

The tramp made one step towards the underbrush, and then, pausing doubtfully, said:

"You don't happen to have a razor and a bit of looking-glass about yer, do yer? I see there's a brook here, and there ain't nothin' Quakery about my beard."

The actor's face was a study.

"I'm afraid there's no escape from it, old man," remarked Cecil. "If you've your shaving materials with you, let him have them."

"There they are. You needn't trouble to return them."[Pg 61]

[Pg 61]

Their recipient grinned appreciatively, and as the last rustle of his retirement into privacy died away, Miss Arminster turned to Banborough and demanded:

"Now tell me what I was arrested for, why you two ran away with me, and where I'm being taken."

"I can answer the first of those questions," broke in Spotts. "You're a Spanish sympathiser and a political spy."

"I'm nothing of the sort, as you know very well!" she replied, colouring violently. "I'm the leading lady of the A. B. C. Company."

"Of course we know it," returned the actor; "but the police have chosen to take a different view of the matter."

"Why is he chaffing me like this?" she said, appealing to Cecil.

"I'm afraid it's a grim reality," he replied. "You see, when the Spanish officials were turned out of Washington, they'd the impertinence to take the title of my book as their password."[Pg 62]

[Pg 62]

"Well, then," she said, "they did what they'd no right to do."


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