"Don't be angry with me," he said, in his innocent way. "I couldn't eat
my cheese, if I did earn it. I can't digest cheese. Besides, I employ
myself as much as I can." He took his little golden vase from the table
behind him, and told me what I had already heard him tell Lucilla while I
was listening at the window. "You would have found me at work this
morning," he went on, "if the stupid people who send me my metal plates
had not made a mistake. The alloy, in the gold and silver both, is all
wrong this time. I must return the plates to be melted again before I can
do anything with them. They are all ready to go back to-day, when the
cart comes. If there are any laboring people here who want money, I'm
sure I will give them some of mine with the greatest pleasure. It isn't
my fault, ma'am, that my father married my mother. And how could I help
it if he left two thousand a year each to my brother and me?"

Two thousand a year each to his brother and him! And the illustrious
Pratolungo had never known what it was to have five pounds sterling at
his disposal before his union with Me!

I lifted my eyes to the ceiling. In my righteous indignation, I forgot
Lucilla and her curiosity about Oscar--I forgot Oscar and his horror of
Lucilla discovering who he was. I opened my lips to speak. In another
moment I should have launched my thunderbolts against the whole infamous
system of modern society, when I was silenced by the most extraordinary
and unexpected interruption that ever closed a woman's lips.

CHAPTER THE TENTH

First Appearance of Jicks

THERE walked in, at the open door of the room--softly, suddenly, and