I was thus engaged in my survey and speculation, when I caught sight of a face hat struck me like a blow and sent the blood tingling through every vein in my body. There, only separated from me by the width of the room, modishly dressed and smiling, stood Captain Creach conversing with two gentlemen. He saw me at the same moment, but his white face gave no more sign than a face of stone, and he went on with his talk as quietly as if I had been at Aquapendente and he alone in Rome.
I did not hesitate a moment—indeed, hesitation has seldom been one of my faults—but making my way across the room, I stepped close to him and said, in as calm a tone as I could command: "Captain Creach, I am surprised to see you in Rome!"
The three gentlemen all faced me at my speech, and Creach, without a change in his wicked face, said: "Young sir, is your address intended for me?"
"I spoke to you by name, sir," I said, with distinctness.
"Then am I famous, indeed," said he, laughing lightly.
"You may laugh, Captain Creach," said I, and was going on, but he interrupted me, speaking very civilly, but angering me all the more for it:
"I see by your dress you are of the Scots College, young gentleman"—for, as usual, I had on my purple soutane with its crimson sash, and over it my black, sleeveless soprano, with my three-cornered hat under my arm—"but there is one lesson you have not as yet learned, and that is, how to address a gentleman. I am not Captain Creach, as you imagine, but Captain Graeme, late of the Hungarian service, and, to the best of my belief, this is the first time I have ever had the honour of addressing you."
He was so quiet and cool that I was dumfounded; but I knew he was lying, though I had never heard a gentleman lie before.
"Not Captain Creach? Not Captain Creach?" I stammered.
"No, sir, 'Not Captain Creach,'" he repeated, mocking me, whereat some of the gentlemen laughed, but one of them broke in with: