"To reappear here. Ten years ago he bought a large property in this
neighbourhood. Three years ago he became a baronet."

"How did a man like Van Koop become a baronet?" I inquired.

"By purchase, I believe."

"By purchase! Are honours in England purchased?"

"You are delightfully innocent, Mr. Quatermain, as a hunter from Africa
should be," said Lord Ragnall, laughing. "Your friend----"

"Excuse me, Lord Ragnall, I am a very humble person, not so elevated,
indeed, as that gamekeeper of yours; therefore I should not venture to
call Sir Junius, late Mr. van Koop, my friend, at least in earnest."

He laughed again.

"Well, the individual with whom you make bets subscribed largely to the
funds of his party. I am telling you what I know to be true, though the
amount I do not know. It has been variously stated to be from fifteen
to fifty thousand pounds, and, perhaps by coincidence, subsequently was
somehow created a baronet."

I stared at him.

"That's all the story," he went on. "I don't like the man myself, but he
is a wonderful pheasant shot, which passes him everywhere. Shooting has
become a kind of fetish in these parts, Mr. Quatermain. For instance, it
is a tradition on this estate that we must kill more pheasants than on