It is true that he instantly closed the door again, and even bolted it, but his display seemed to make a vast impression upon himself.
“Many men vould not dare so to go mit anozzer name,” he announced; “bot I have my nerves onder a good gontrol.”
“You astonish me,” said the Count.
“I do even surprise myself,” admitted the Baron.
In truth the ordeal of carelessly carrying off an alias is said by those who have undergone it (and the report is confirmed by an experienced class of public officials) to require a species of hardihood which, fortunately for society, is somewhat rare. The most daring Smith will sometimes stammer when it comes to merely answering “Yes” to a cry of “Brown!” and Count Bunker, whose knowledge of human nature was profound and remarkably accurate, was careful to fortify his friend by example and praise, till by the time they went to bed the Baron could scarcely be withheld from seeking out the manager and airing his assurance upon him. Or, at least, he declared he would have done this had he been sure that the manager was not already in bed himself.
Unfortunately at this juncture the Count committed one of those indiscretions to which a gay spirit is always prone, but which, to do him justice, seldom sullied his own record as a successful adventurer. At an hour considerably past midnight, hearing an excited summons from the Baron's bedroom, he laid down his toothbrush and hastened across the passage, to find the new peer in a crimson dressing-gown of quilted silk gazing enthusiastically at a lithograph that hung upon the wall.
“See!” he cried gleefully, “here is my own ancestor. Bonker, I feel I am Tollyvoddle indeed.”
The print which had inspired this enthusiasm depicted a historical but treasonable Lord Tulliwuddle preparing to have his head removed.
Giving it a droll look, the Count observed—
“Well, if it inspires you, my dear Baron, that's all right. The omen would have struck me differently.”