in some danger, I fear me, as regards their queen. They have,
however, taken the first and most important step by getting the news
carried to me. The next is to raise an army; and the next after
that, to suit the plan of invasion to our forces. Indeed," wound up
my father with another flourish of his carving-knife, "I am in
considerable doubt where to make a start."

"I hold," said my uncle, eyeing the saddle of mutton, "that you save
the gravy by beginning close alongside the chine."

"I was thinking for my part that either Porto or Sagone would serve
us best," said my father, meditatively.


Dinner over, the four of us strolled out abreast into the cool
evening and down through the deer-park to the small Ionic temple,
where Billy Priske had laid out fruit, wine, and glasses; and there,
with no more ceremony than standing to drink my health, the three
initiated me into the brotherhood of St. Swithun. It gave me a
sudden sense of being grown a man, and this sense my father very
promptly proceeded to strengthen.

"I had hoped," said he, putting down his glass and seating himself,
"to delay Prosper's novitiate. I had designed, indeed, that after
staying his full time at Oxford he should make the Grand Tour with me
and prepare himself for his destiny by a leisured study of cities and
men. But this morning's news has forced me to reshape my plans.
Listen--

"In the early autumn of 1735, being then at the Court of Tuscany, I