“Ah! then you have found your needle in the haystack after all?” cried Doom, vastly interested.
“Found the devil!” cried Montaiglon, a shade of vexation in his countenance, for he had not once that day had a thought of all that had brought, him into Scotland. “The haystack must be stuck full of needles like the bran of a pin-cushion.”
“And this one, who is not the particular needle named Drimdarroch?”
“I shall give you three guesses, M. le Baron.”
Doom reflected, pulled out his nether lip with his fingers, looking hard at his guest.
“It is not the Chamberlain?”
“Peste!” thought the Count, “can the stern unbending parent have relented? You are quite right,” he said; “no other. But it is not a matter of the most serious importance. I lost my coat and the gentleman lost a little blood. I have the best assurances that he will be on foot again in a week or two, by which time I hope—at all events I expect—to be out of all danger of being invited to resume the entertainment.”
“In the meantime here's Doom, yours—so long as it is mine—while it's your pleasure to bide in it if you fancy yourself safe from molestation,” said the Baron.
“As to that I think I may be tranquil. I have, there too, the best assurances that the business will be hushed up.”
“So much the better, though in any case this seems to have marred your real engagements here in the matter of Drimdarroch.”