"I have had an enjoyable time. I've been over to Dhalmatia."
"What?" exclaimed the General.
After his warning to me, I suppose the old fellow imagined I would not care to visit the Red Fox. Neither Nick nor I had told him of the result of our first visit. Had he known that, the storm clouds gathering upon his brow would have been twice as dark.
"Yes," I continued, "and I have seen both the Prince and the Princess, General. The Red Fox was not tricking you when he announced the birth of twins."
Then I told the story of my afternoon as rapidly as possible. But the General was not impressed. The aged, as the homely old expression has it, are frequently "sot in their ways" and I suppose the General had hugged this favourite delusion to his breast so long that he could not let it go. When I was through he remarked dryly:
"Then you did not see the Prince and the Princess together, after all?"
"I did not see them standing side by side," I admitted; "but it was practically the same thing."
"I always told you, General," chimed in Nicholas, "that you were wrong. I agree with Dale, and you might as well surrender as gracefully as possible."
But the General refused to surrender.
"'Tis some trick of the Red Fox," he stoutly maintained, and no amount of argument could move him. He met every advance and escaped every tight corner with the same reply. In his mind Ananias was a truth-teller compared with the Duke of Dhalmatia. We finally dropped the subject, and talked of other matters.