respect to these giant minds.

"You think that The Scarlet Pimpernel is dead, Mr. Clutterbuck? That
those horrible Frenchies murdered him? Surely you don't mean that?"
sighed Mistress Polly ruefully.

Mr. Clutterbuck put his hand up to his hat, preparatory no doubt to
making another appeal to the mysterious poets, but was interrupted in
the very act of uttering great thoughts by a loud and prolonged laugh
which came echoing from a distant corner of the grounds.

"Lud! but I'd know that laugh anywhere," said Mistress Quekett,
whilst all eyes were turned in the direction whence the merry noise
had come.

Half a head taller than any of his friends around him, his lazy blue
eyes scanning from beneath their drooping lids the motley throng
around him, stood Sir Percy Blakeney, the centre of a gaily-dressed
little group which seemingly had just crossed the toll-gate.

"A fine specimen of a man, for sure," remarked Johnnie Cullen, the
apprentice.

"Aye! you may take your Bible oath on that!" sighed Mistress Polly,
who was inclined to be sentimental.

"Speakin' as the poets," pronounced Mr. Clutterbuck sententiously,
"inches don't make a man."

"Nor fine clothes neither," added Master Jezzard, who did not