“How do you mean there 's no harm in it?”
“Simply, that if a man can't keep his saddle, he ought n't to try to ride foremost; but these speculations will only puzzle you, my dear Harcourt. What of Glencore? You said awhile ago that the town was talking of him—how and wherefore was it?”
“Haven't you heard the story, then?”
“Not a word of it.”
“Well, I'm a bad narrator; besides, I don't know where to begin; and even if I did, I have nothing to tell but the odds and ends of club gossip, for I conclude nobody knows all the facts but the King himself.”
“If I were given to impatience, George, you would be a most consummate plague to me,” said Upton; “but I am not. Go on, however, in your own blundering way, and leave me to glean what I can in mine.”
Cheered and encouraged by this flattering speech, Harcourt did begin; but, more courteous to him than Sir Horace, we mean to accord him a new chapter for his revelations; premising the while to our reader that the Colonel, like the knife-grinder, had really “no story to tell.”
CHAPTER XXXIX. A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE
“You want to hear all about Glencore?” said Harcourt, as, seated in the easiest of attitudes in an easy-chair, he puffed his cigar luxuriously; “and when I have told you all I know, the chances are you'll be little the wiser.” Upton smiled a bland assent to this exordium, but in such a way as to make Harcourt feel less at ease than before.