“What my friends call clown, and I call wit,” Mr Bunker corrected.
“Vit! Ha, ha, ha!” roared the Baron, whose mind [pg 71] was now in an El Dorado of humour when jokes grew like daisies. His loneliness had disappeared as if by magic; as course succeeded course his contentment showed itself in a perpetually beaming smile: he ceased to worry even about his friend’s pedigree, convinced in his mind that manners so delightful and distinguished could only result from repeated quarterings and unoccupied forefathers. Yet by the time dessert arrived and he had again returned to his port, he began to feel an extreme curiosity to know more concerning Mr Bunker. He himself had volunteered a large quantity of miscellaneous information: about Bavaria, its customs and its people, more especially the habits and history of the Blitzenberg family; about himself, his parentage and education; all about his family ghost, his official position as hereditary carpet-beater to the Bavarian Court, and many other things equally entertaining and instructive. Mr Bunker, for his part, had so far confined his confidences to his name.
“My dear Bonker,” said the Baron at last—he had become quite familiar by this time—“vat make you in London? I fear you are bird of passage. Do you stay long?”
Mr Bunker cracked a nut, looking very serious; then he leant on one elbow, glanced up at the ceiling pensively, and sighed.
“I hope I do not ask vat I should not,” the Baron interposed, courteously.
“My dear Baron, ask what you like,” replied Mr Bunker. “In a city full of strangers, or of friends who [pg 72] have forgotten me, you alone have my confidence. My story is a common one of youthful folly and present repentance, but such as it is, you are welcome to it.”
The Baron gulped down half a glass of port and leaned forward sympathetically.
“My father,” Mr Bunker continued with an air of half-sad reminiscence, “is one of the largest landowners and the head of one of the most ancient families in the north of England. I was his eldest son and heir. I am still, I have every reason to believe, his eldest son, but my heirship, I regret to say, is more doubtful. I spent a prodigal youth and a larger sum of money than my poor father approved of. He was a strict though a kind parent, and for the good of my health and the replenishment of the family coffers, which had been sadly drained by my extravagance, he sent me abroad. There I have led a roving life for the last six years, and at last, my wild oats sown, reaped, and gathered in (and a well-filled stackyard they made, I can assure you), I decided to return to England and become an ornament to respectable society. Like you, I arrived in London to-day, but only to find to my disgust that my family have gone to winter in Egypt. So you see that at present I am like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock and waiting, with what patience I can muster, for a boat to take me off.”
“You mean,” inquired the Baron, anxiously, “that you vish to go to Egypt at vonce?”
“I had thought of it; though there is a difficulty in the way, I admit.”