"If you don't mind telling me, what is your name?"
"I suppose there can be no harm in letting you know it. I was told if ever I met any one and they asked me, not to tell them. But since you saved my life it would be ungrateful not to let you know. I am the Marquis of Beckenham."
"Is that so? Then your father is the Duke of Glenbarth?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"Never set eyes on him in my life, but I heard him spoken of the other day."
I did not add that it was Mr. Matchem who, during my conversation with him, had referred to his Grace, nor did I think it well to say that he had designated him the "Mad Duke." And so the boy I had saved from drowning was the young Marquis of Beckenham. Well, I was moving in good society with a vengeance. This boy was the first nobleman I had ever clapped eyes on, though I knew the Count de Panuroff well enough in Thursday Island. But then foreign Counts, and shady ones at that, ought not to reckon, perhaps.
"But you don't mean to tell me," I said at length, "that you've got no friends? Don't you ever see any one at all?"
"No, I am not allowed to. My father thinks it better not. And as he does not wish it, of course I have nothing left but to obey. I must own, however, I should like to see the world—to go along voyage to Australia, for instance."
"But how do you put in your time? You must have a very dull life of it."
"Oh, no! You see, I have never known anything else, and then I have always the future to look forward to. As it is now, I bathe every morning, I have my yacht, I ride about the park, I have my studies, and I have a tutor who tells me wonderful stories of the world."