"My first and last! I do not know how any one can engage in a second one after feeling what it is to kill a man."
"You feel so because it is your first affair. You would not mind your second, and you would rather enjoy your third," suavely observed the colonel, who then drew a railway card from his pocket, examined it, looked at his watch, and said:
"We shall be in time to catch the morning's express to Calais, and we may actually eat our dinners in London. When we arrive you can get some of your people to send a telegram to Tompkins, to order him to pay your hotel bill and bring your effects to London, or wherever else you may think of stopping."
"Thanks for your counsel. I leave myself entirely in your hands," said the duke, with a half-suppressed sigh.
They caught the express to Calais, connected with the Dover boat, and crossed the channel the same day. They ran up to London by the afternoon train, and arrived in good time for a dinner at "Morley's."
Two telegrams were dispatched to Paris—one to the respectable Mr. Tompkins, with orders to pay bills and return with his master's effects; the other to the estimable Mr. Joyce, the groom of the colonel, with orders to perform the same services in behalf of his own employer.
Then the principal and his second separated—the duke to go to his town-house in Piccadilly and the colonel to join his regiment, then stationed at Brighton.
And as the extradition treaty had not at that day been thought of, both were perfectly safe.