A good deal of pantomimic action had accompanied the delivery of this speech, the Doctor being engaged in making vain and futile attempts to get past his persecutor, who on his part continued, with an affectation of the deepest respect, constantly, and with the utmost perseverance, to frustrate them. The concluding words of his address, however, elicited the following rejoinder, spoken in a quick, cross manner:—
“You have the advantage of me, sir, for I do not remember ever setting eyes on you before in my life. I never forget a face I have once seen.”
“Confound his memory!” thought Bracy, “Frere won’t have a chance with him;” he only said, however, “You are right, Doctor; the fact of your looking well is so self-evident that I ventured to remark it, without having any previous data to go upon—but here is his Highness,” and as he spoke, he at length moved on one side and allowed the man of learning to pass.
Frere coming forward at the same minute, Bracy whispered, while the Doctor bent in a low salaam:
“I have bothered his brains sweetly for him, he hardly knows whether he’s standing on his head or his heels; so now you must take care of yourself, and joy go with you.”
Frere, thus apostrophised, returned the Doctor’s salute with much cordiality, and Bracy, feigning some excuse, left them to entertain each other, having before his eyes a wholesome dread of the newcomer’s addressing him in Persian, and thereby discovering his deplorable ignorance of that interesting language.
Time, which does not stand still for princes any more than for private individuals, passed on with its usual rapidity. Most of the gentlemen having eaten as much, and drunk probably more (looking at it in a medical point of view) than was good for them, had rejoined the ladies, and it became evident to Bracy that a crisis in his evening’s amusement was approaching. On his return to the drawing-room he must of course resume his duties as interpreter, and this inconvenient Persian professor would inevitably discover the imposture. This was the more provoking, as Frere’s likeness to the Prince must evidently have been much stronger than he had imagined, and his acquaintance with the rules of Persian etiquette more extensive than he had believed possible, for the Doctor continued to converse with the utmost gravity, and appeared to believe in him implicitly. While he was still pondering the matter in his anxious mind, the few last remaining guests conveyed themselves away, and the Prince and his party were left to dispute possession of the supper-room with empty champagne bottles and half-tipsy waiters. Frere, when he perceived this to be the case, beckoned Bracy to approach, and as soon as he was within earshot, whispered—
“I have humbugged the old fellow beautifully on the score of our Persian recollections, but he has just been questioning me about you,—where you acquired your knowledge of the language, whether you have been much in the East, how I became acquainted with you, and all the rest of it. I put him off with lies as long as I could, but it would not do, and as a last resource, I have been obliged to refer him to you.”
“The deuce you have!” was the reply; “that is pleasant. He’ll be jabbering his confounded lingo, and I shall not understand a word he says to me; besides, my jargon won’t go down with him, you know. I tell you what, I shall be off, and you must say upstairs (he can interpret for you) that I have been sent for by the prime minister at a minute’s notice, à la De Grandeville.”
“’Tis too late,” replied Frere; and at the same instant the Doctor seized Bracy by the button, and in a stern and impressive manner asked some apparently searching question in Persian. Few men had enjoyed the delight of seeing Tom Bracy in the unenviable frame of mind expressed by the nautical term “taken aback,” but of that favoured few were the bystanders on the present occasion. Never was an unhappy individual more thoroughly and completely at a loss; and it must be confessed the situation was an embarrassing one. To be addressed by an elderly stranger in an unintelligible language, in which you are expected to reply, while at the same time you are painfully conscious that your incapacity to do so, or even (not understanding the question) to give an appropriate answer in your native tongue, will lead to a discovery you are most anxious to avert, is an undeniably awkward position in which to be placed. That Bracy found it so was most evident, for he fidgeted, stammered, glanced appealingly towards Frere for aid, and at last was obliged, between annoyance and an intense appreciation of the absurdity of his situation, to get up a fictitious cough, which, irritating the membrane of the nose, produced a most violent genuine sneeze. From the effects of this convulsion of nature he was relieved by a hearty slap on the back, while at the same moment the tones of a familiar voice exclaimed in his ear—