“By the way, who is he?” broke in Onslow, eagerly.
“He has been traced back to Madras, but the most searching inquiries have failed to elicit anything further.”
“Is he the man they called Arlington's Colonel Haggerstone?”
Jekyl nodded; but with an air that seemed to say, he would not enter more deeply into the subject.
“And your other companion who is he?”
“Peter Dalton, of I am ashamed to say I forget where,” said Jekyl; who, at once assuming Dalton's bloated look, in a well-feigned Irish accent, went on: “a descendant of as ancient and as honorable a familee as any in the three kingdoms, and if a little down in the world bad luck to them that done it! just as ready as ever he was to enjoy agreeable society and the ganial flow of soul.”
“He 's the better of the two, I take it,” said Onslow.
“More interesting, certainly, just as a ruined chateau is a more picturesque object than a new police-station or a cut-stone penitentiary. There 's another feature also which ought to give him the preference. I have seen two very pretty faces from time to time as I have passed the windows, and which I conjecture to belong to his daughters.”
“Have you not made their acquaintance?” asked Onslow, in some surprise.
“I grieve to say I have not,” sighed Jekyl, softly.