"Then I have no need to go to Paris. Get in, Mr. Secretary."
Dick obeyed with alacrity, Lord George ordered the postilion to turn around, and soon they were whirling through Charenton, on the road to Melun, Dick telling Lord George his story, and receiving the latter's unsolicited promise to back whatever assertions might become necessary to show that his lordship's secretary was not the man who had escaped from the Bastile.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DICK GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN SHOOTING.
But Dick's appearance was soon so changed as to remove fear of recognition, thanks to the equipment with which Lord George provided him, as advanced payment, out of his lordship's own wardrobe,—an equipment for a fine gentleman rather than for a secretary. The transformation was begun at Melun, whence the travellers went speedily to Fontainebleau, where a barber and hair-dresser completed it. Dick was then told that his duties would consist in writing letters of travel that his lordship had promised to send to England. His lordship gave the name to which these epistles were to be directed. Dick echoed back the name, in astonishment:
"Miss Celestine Thorpe! Why, it seems to me I've heard—"
"Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfordshire and renewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,—that is to say, conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to show how I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this place I found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search of a secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabel is soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite of the lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revenges himself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her green with jealousy."
Dick sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives of the people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must have been by them forgotten. Such is the world!
The next few weeks, passed in leisurely travel from one old town of France to another, were among the most uneventful and serenely pleasurable in Dick's life. From the noble forest, great rocks, and historic château of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its winding streets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and were towed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks down on fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot of its hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company of merchants, lawyers, abbés, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women of different ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined in the quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectually disguised Lord George's rank and nationality.