A Poached Peerage

"Wish I'd known you were having such a thrilling time," he said regretfully. "I'd have come up and helped. Well, I say, with this new twist of the Quorn title our fair friends a...

Colonel Hemyock, the temporary tenant of Staplewick Towers, was a somewhat blatant specimen of a retired military man with an unbounded sense of his personal dignity and importa...

The man who, with his burly form filling up the window, stood looking in with grim amusement at Peckover's performance, was a great round-faced, bullet-headed fellow of six feet...

The most tangible result of the aquatic performance was that Gage, through his long immersion, caught a bad chill, and had to take to his bed. Peckover, who was none the worse f...

For the dripping Peckover was still holding tenaciously on to the side of the punt, with a fixity of purpose which no mere considerations of stage effect seemed likely to dispos...

Perhaps it was the recollection of the procedure which had led her to that conclusion that surprised her into the laugh, not so low but that it reached the object of their atten...

So paralysed were they that it was not till the crunching of the carriage wheels on the gravel roused them from their lugubrious stupor that they found tongue to discuss their s...

Gage frowned. "She came for me. She was after me," he returned in an exasperated tone. "That was the arrangement. And I don't pay you five thousand a year to interfere in my lov...

It was to appear that Mr. Carnaby Leo and his sister were not to be put off so easily as the confederates imagined. Encouraged by what they considered the other side's weakness,...

"It is too bad of you, Ethel. I do wish you would mind your own business and confine your attentions to either old Sharnbrook or Lord Quorn. The way you try to flirt with Mr. Ga...

Lady Ormstork was a practitioner in somewhat the same line of business as Lady Agatha Hemyock. Her dealings were however, of a wider scope and carried out with more histrionic e...

Staplewick Towers. That was the name of the place, his own, that he had been on his way to see. He would soon get the answer to the riddle. As to his having been nearly drowned,...

From this flaccid condition he was roused by a somewhat obstreperous knocking and whistling in the passage dividing the coffee-room from the bar. In a moment he had sprung up an...

The real and resuscitated Lord Quorn had all this while been having a deplorable time of it. Driven from the _Three Pigeons_ in consequence of that hostelry being the abode of t...

The sight of yesterday's visitor seemed to paralyse both men, and the grim fascination that had held them before now clutched them again. Gage, who had, under the influence of L...

The hit was greeted by an offensive laugh of exultation by the thrower, with a gasp of subdued rage by the receiver of the spinous missile, and by the rest of the company with v...

The hour of 10.30 next morning saw the depository of the Salolja traditions, a defiant and fretful Castilian porcupine with quills erect, standing in the dock of an occasional c...

A pretty girl looked out of the low-silled coffee-room window of the _Quorn Arms_ at Great Bunbury, and threw a glance of roguish invitation at a watchful young man who was pret...

Gage, _soi-disant_ Quorn, was, to put it mildly, anything but pleased at Peckover's manoeuvre, Nevertheless he did not take the first opportunity of proposing to the fascinating...

"Having now," resumed the duke, when the two men had, with a fine affectation of nonchalance, but with somewhat unsteady hands, lighted up again, "taken you through as much of t...

At the startling declaration the duke swung round and eyed Gage with a glance that seemed capable of penetrating an inch board. Lady Ormstork, surprised for a moment out of her...

Mr. Doutfire came in close upon Bisgood's announcement, and threw a severely professional eye round the company. His manner, in fact, suggested, in a measure, that he was raidin...

For several seconds neither man spoke; Peckover, sprawling limply as he fell, staring with distended, apprehensive eyes at Quorn who, master of the strange situation, regarded h...

"I meant," he pursued, with a stimulating glance at the fresh, pretty face, highly provocative now with a roguish smile, "a walk with you. I've been longing for this moment ever...

"You may rely on my keeping my mouth shut," said Lord Quorn, giving a tremendous yawn which for the moment seemed to cast a doubt upon his ability in that direction.

Lady Ormstork received them with pleasure tinged with just a shade of vexation. "We were so disappointed at not finding you at home to-day of all days," she exclaimed. "We heard...

With a prodigious effort Mr. Leo pulled himself together. "We've had enough of your lip," he declared in a loud voice. "I don't jaw, I fight. Look here." He caught up the fire-i...

After Lord Quorn--supposed to be Percy Peckover--had been carried to Dr. Barton's surgery, he lay for several days in a state of now total, now semi, unconsciousness. The astute...

"Tell you what it is, Percival, my boy," said Gage at breakfast next morning; "I've had about enough of nobility. Grandeur and aristocracy have too many inconveniences to suit m...

Mr. Doutfire with professional promptitude at once proceeded to adapt himself to the situation. He planted himself in business-like fashion before the wriggling duke, and with a...

"Can't say I notice much family likeness, old man." Peckover had been enjoying the novelty of a contemplative cigarette in the ancestral picture gallery of the Quorns, and was t...

"Hours," he declared feelingly, then quickly corrected the statement. "No, I mean, not long." Back in the darkness he fancied he could see the truculent eyes glaring through the...

With a vicious kick at the encumbering and undignified table-cover, Mr. Sparrow, green with passion, advanced upon his supposed traducer, who backed away in a composite attitude...

"Well, Percy, my boy, what do you tot them up to come to?" inquired Gage jovially as they turned from an impressive adieu to their guests who drove off radiant--at least as far...

"Thanks," answered the man, smothering a third yawn in recognition of his fellow-guest's civility. "You are a brick. Got more than you care to drink there?" he added to qualify...

"Eh, you scallywag?" The big man advanced upon him threateningly. "Let me go into figures with your beautiful Lord Quorn. Once before a man played the fool with Lalage, and we g...

The man who, avoiding the bar, made his way straight into the coffee-room, entered with an air in which jauntiness and limpness were curiously combined. His get-up showed that c...

It was, however, unfortunate that Miss Ethel had to leave her lover and her sister together. Peckover, baulked of a kiss in one direction, was by no means above trying for one i...

"My good sir," replied Gage, "I don't see how we can help taking them in if we make up our minds to do it. Just think; what man is there alive who could really, logically prove...

"I've had enough of this, I'm going to get up," Mr. Gage, the _soi-disant_ Lord Quorn, declared, as Peckover after luncheon devoted a few minutes of his present complicated exis...

"No, certainly not," the host agreed with professional severity. "It must have been Doutfire." Satisfied with the conjecture he went up confidentially to his guest. "I'll tell y...

The shuffling of feet sounded outside the door, and Peckover had just time to throw himself into a chair at some distance from Lord Quorn and snatch up a newspaper when the land...