“We will talk that over after the ascents,” said the squire. “I daresay my gamekeeper, who is outside, wants to know if we are ready to ascend. Miss Dove will take your lady friend upstairs; but, dear me, she is looking at the photograph of Mr Falcon, and has turned quite pale. Do take her to your room, Edith, and don’t forget to give orders about the other rooms for our friends. And now, gentlemen,” added the squire, “do be seated for five minutes and taste my port wine. Here’s health and long life to you both. Ah! I’m truly glad to find that we are brothers in a masonic sense. It strikes me that I shall know your names before long, and those other two names as well. I mean of the unprincipled gentleman and the able policeman.”
“We shall feel bound to let you know them before we separate,” said the aeronaut.
“I have just been thinking,” observed Squire Dove, “that there is something very remarkable in your having all identified the photographic likeness on the wall. Three to one is long odds. I suppose, if Mr Falcon should come in, you will have no objection to meeting him?”
“I should not,” said the aeronaut.
“Nor I,” added the captain, “if I am not again mistaken for him by a detective as I was this morning.”
“You are letting the cat out of the bag now, captain,” said the squire. “But really I thought you were alluding to our Mr Falcon in your humorous story, that is to say if you were not indulging in fiction.”
“What I said was all literally true, squire.”
“I can answer for that,” added the aeronaut.
“You amaze me completely,” cried the squire; “but would you, if Mr Falcon should turn up outside or here, tell him so to his face?”
“Yes, and a great deal more,” replied Captain Link; “but Falcon would not have the audacity to remain for a second in our presence.”