The duke laughed discordantly. "Great Bunbury! It makes me laugh."
"You'll have plenty of time for laughing," observed Peckover, "in jail. You can do a lot of smiling in twelve calendar months if you stick to it."
The duke snapped his fingers, but he looked uneasy, and the snap wanted tone. Perhaps the fingers were clammy. "I shall not go," he maintained, "till I have killed some one in Great Bunbury."
"Not good enough," argued Peckover. "If you kill anybody here you'll be hanged. And you couldn't kill anybody worth a duke's being hanged for. Why, the best man you could select for the purpose in the town wouldn't rise above an auctioneer or a brewer. It wouldn't be a fair deal."
Still the duke was obstinate. "I marry the adorable Buffkin," he declared, "in spite of Great Bunbury."
"All right. Here she is," said Gage, pointing to an open carriage which was approaching.
A portmanteau shared the box with the driver. Inside were three people, Lady Ormstork, Miss Buffkin and a middle-aged man with greyish-red hair and a face which partook curiously of the characteristics of the fox and the sheep. He was a common-looking person, and, as such, had the air of being out of place in that company.
Lady Ormstork stopped the carriage and hailed the group on the pavement. "My dear Lord Quorn, this is fortunate," she exclaimed, addressing her remark to the three possible holders of that title, with a leaning towards Gage. "What absurd goings on at Staplewick! How d'you do, duke? I always said your wilful ignorance of our English ideas would land you in trouble. Well, and how has the ridiculous business at the Court House gone off? Laughed out of court, I presume."
As the duke seemed inclined to impart no more precise information than could be gathered from a bow and a scowl, Peckover answered the question. "Remanded on bail."
Lady Ormstork threw up her hands in amused horror. "A Salolja, a Grandee of Spain, remanded on bail by a bench of provincial cheese-mongers!" she cried. "Really, it is the very acme of the ridiculous. It is only fit for a burlesque. My dearest Ulrica, do think of it! Oh, dear me, it is too absurd for comment." And she went off in a fit of rather stagey laughter.