"You didn't know I was a baron, did you?" he finally observed.
"No," I answered, thinking he was exercising his fancy for the moment. "Where do you keep your baronial lands, my lord?"
"In Germany, kind sir," he replied, banteringly.
Then in his customary excitable mood he dropped his brushes and stood up.
"You don't believe me, do you?" he exclaimed, looking over his drooping glasses.
"Why, certainly I believe you, if you are serious. Are you truly a baron?"
"It was this way," he said. "My grandfather was a baron. My father was the younger of two brothers. His brother got the title and what was left of the estate. That he managed to go through with, and then he died. Now, no one has bothered about the title—"
"And you're going back to claim it?"
"Exactly."
I took it all lightly at first, but in time I began to perceive that it was a serious ambition. He truly wanted to be Baron S—— and add to himself the luster of his ancestors.