



Produced by Charles Keller





COUNT BUNKER

Being A Bald Yet Veracious Chronicle Containing Some Further Particulars
Of Two Gentlemen Whose Previous Careers Were Touched Upon In A Tome
Entitled "The Lunatic At Large"

By J. Storer Clouston




COUNT BUNKER



CHAPTER I

It is only with the politest affectation of interest, as a rule,
that English Society learns the arrival in its midst of an ordinary
Continental nobleman; but the announcement that the Baron Rudolph von
Blitzenberg had been appointed attache to the German embassy at the
Court of St. James was unquestionably received with a certain flutter of
excitement. That his estates were as vast as an average English county,
and his ancestry among the noblest in Europe, would not alone perhaps
have arrested the attention of the paragraphists, since acres and
forefathers of foreign extraction are rightly regarded as conferring
at the most a claim merely to toleration. But in addition to these
he possessed a charming English wife, belonging to one of the
most distinguished families in the peerage (the Grillyers of
Monkton-Grillyer), and had further demonstrated his judgment by
purchasing the winner of the last year's Derby, with a view to improving
the horse-flesh of his native land.

From a footnote attached to the engraving of the Baron in a Homburg hat
holding the head of the steed in question, which formed the principal
attraction in several print-sellers' windows in Piccadilly, one gathered
that though his faculties had been cultivated and exercised in every
conceivable direction, yet this was his first serious entrance into the
diplomatic world. There was clearly, therefore, something unusual
about the appointment; so that it was rumored, and rightly, that an
international importance was to be attached to the incident, and a
delicate compliment to be perceived in the selection of so popular a
link between the Anglo-Saxon and the Teutonic peoples. Accordingly "Die
Wacht am Rhein" was played by the Guards' band down the entire length
of Ebury Street, photographs of the Baroness appeared in all the leading
periodicals, and Society, after its own less demonstrative but equally
sincere fashion, prepared to welcome the distinguished visitors.

They arrived in town upon a delightful day in July, somewhat late in
the London season, to be sure, yet not too late to be inundated with a
snowstorm of cards and invitations to all the smartest functions that
remained. For the first few weeks, at least, you would suppose the Baron
to have no time for thought beyond official receptions and unofficial
dinners; yet as he looked from his drawing-room windows into the gardens
of Belgrave Square upon the second afternoon since they had settled into
this great mansion, it was not upon such functions that his fancy ran.
Nobody was more fond of gaiety, nobody more appreciative of purple and
fine linen, than the Baron von Blitzenberg; but as he mused there he
began to recall more and more vividly, and with an ever rising pleasure,
quite different memories of life in London. Then by easy stages regret
began to cloud this reminiscent satisfaction, until at last he sighed--

"Ach, my dear London! How moch should I enjoy you if I were free!"

For the benefit of those who do not know the Baron either personally or
by repute, he may briefly be described as an admirably typical Teuton.
When he first visited England (some five years previously) he stood
for Bavarian manhood in the flower; now, you behold the fruit. As
magnificently mustached, as ruddy of skin, his eye as genial, and his
impulses as hearty; he added to-day to these two more stone of Teutonic
excellences incarnate.

In his ingenuous glance, as in the more rounded contour of his
waistcoat, you could see at once that fate had dealt kindly with him.
Indeed, to hear him sigh was so unwonted an occurrence that the Baroness
looked up with an air of mild surprise.

"My dear Rudolph," said she, "you should really open the window. You are
evidently feeling the heat."

"No, not ze heat," replied the Baron.

He did not turn his head towards her, and she looked at him more
anxiously.

"What is it, then? I have noticed a something strange about you ever
since we landed at Dover. Tell me, Rudolph!"

Thus adjured, he cast a troubled glance in her direction. He saw a face
whose mild blue eyes and undetermined mouth he still swore by as the
standard by which to try all her inferior sisters, and a figure whose
growing embonpoint yearly approached the outline of his ideal hausfrau.
But it was either St. Anthony or one of his fellow-martyrs who observed
that an occasional holiday from the ideal is the condiment in the
sauce of sanctity; and some such reflection perturbed the Baron at this
moment.

"It is nozing moch," he answered.

"Oh, I know what it is. You have grown so accustomed to seeing the same
people, year after year--the Von Greifners, and Rosenbaums, and all
those. You miss them, don't you? Personally, I think it a very good
thing that you should go abroad and be a diplomatist, and not stay in
Fogelschloss so much; and you'll soon make loads of friends here. Mother
comes to us next week, you know."

"Your mozzer is a nice old lady," said the Baron slowly. "I respect her,
Alicia; bot it vas not mozzers zat I missed just now."

"What was it?"

"Life!" roared the Baron, with a sudden outburst of thundering
enthusiasm that startled the Baroness completely out of her composure.
"I did have fun for my money vunce in London. Himmel, it is too hot to
eat great dinners and to vear clothes like a monkey-jack."

"Like a what?" gasped the Baroness.

To hear the Baron von Blitzenberg decry the paraphernalia and splendors
of his official liveries was even more astonishing than his remarkable
denunciation of the pleasures of the table, since to dress as well
as play the part of hereditary grandee had been till this minute his
constant and enthusiastic ambition.

"A meat-jack, I mean--or a--I know not vat you call it. Ach, I vant a
leetle fun, Alicia."

"A little fun," repeated the Baroness in a breathless voice. "What kind
of fun?"

"I know not," said he, turning once more to stare out of the window.

To this dignified representative of a particularly dignified State
even the trees of Belgrave Square seemed at that moment a trifle too
conventionally perpendicular. If they would but dance and wave their
boughs he would have greeted their greenness more gladly. A good-looking
nursemaid wheeled a perambulator beneath their shade, and though she
never looked his way, he took a wicked pleasure in surreptitiously
closing first one eye and then the other in her direction. This might
not entirely satisfy the aspirations of his soul, yet it seemed to serve
as some vent for his pent-up spirit. He turned to his spouse with a
pleasantly meditative air.

"I should like to see old Bonker vunce more," he observed.

"Bunker? You mean Mr. Mandell-Essington?" said she, with an apprehensive
note in her voice.

"To me he vill alvays be Bonker."

The Baroness looked at him reproachfully.

"You promised me, Rudolph, you would see as little as possible of Mr.
Essington."

"Oh, ja, as leetle--as possible," answered the Baron, though not with
his most ingenuous air. "Besides, it is tree years since I promised.
For tree years I have seen nozing. My love Alicia, you vould not have me
forget mine friends altogezzer?"

But the Baroness had too vivid a recollection of their last (and only)
visit to England since their marriage. By a curious coincidence that
also was three years ago.

"When you last met you remember what happened?" she asked, with an
ominous hint of emotion in her accents.

"My love, how often have I eggsplained? Zat night you mean, I did
schleep in mine hat because I had got a cold in my head. I vas not
dronk, no more zan you. Vat you found in my pocket vas a mere joke,
and ze cabman who called next day vas jost vat I told him to his ogly
face--a blackmail."

"You gave him money to go away."

"A Blitzenberg does not bargain mit cabmen," said the Baron loftily.

His wife's spirits began to revive. There seemed to speak the owner of
Fogelschloss, the haughty magnate of Bavaria.

"You have too much self-respect to wish to find yourself in such a
position again," she said. "I know you have, Rudolph!"

The Baron was silent. This appeal met with distinctly less response than
she confidently counted upon. In a graver note she inquired--

"You know what mother thinks of Mr. Essington?"

"Your mozzer is a vise old lady, Alicia; but we do not zink ze same on
all opinions."

"She will be exceedingly displeased if you--well, if you do anything
that she THOROUGHLY disapproves of."

The Baron left the window and took his wife's plump hand affectionately
within his own broad palm.

"You can assure her, my love, zat I shall never do vat she dislikes. You
vill say zat to her if she inquires?"

"Can I, truthfully?"

"Ach, my own dear!"

From his enfolding arms she whispered tenderly--

"Of course I will, Rudolph!"

With a final hug the embrace abruptly ended, and the Baron hastily
glanced at his watch.

"Ach, nearly had I forgot! I must go to ze club for half an hour."

"Must you?"

"To meet a friend."

"What friend?" asked the Baroness quickly.

"A man whose name you vould know vell--oh, vary vell known he is! But
in diplomacy, mine Alicia, a quiet meeting in a club is sometimes better
not to be advertised too moch. Great wars have come from one vord
of indiscretion. You know ze axiom of Bismarck--'In diplomacy it is
necessary for a diplomatist to be diplomatic.' Good-by, my love."

He bowed as profoundly as if she were a reigning sovereign, blew an
affectionate kiss as he went through the door, and then descended the
stairs with a rapidity that argued either that his appointment was
urgent or that diplomacy shrank from a further test within this mansion.



CHAPTER II

For the last year or two the name of Rudolph von Blitzenberg had
appeared in the members' list of that most exclusive of institutions,
the Regent's Club, Pall Mall; and it was thither he drove on this fine
afternoon of July. At no resort in London were more famous personages
to be found, diplomatic and otherwise, and nothing would have been
more natural than a meeting between the Baron and a European celebrity
beneath its roof; so that if you had seen him bounding impetuously up
the steps, and noted the eagerness with which he inquired whether a
gentleman had called for him, you would have had considerable excuse
for supposing his appointment to be with a dignitary of the highest
importance.

"Goot!" he cried on learning that a stranger was indeed waiting for
him. His face beamed with anticipatory joy. Aha! he was not to be
disappointed.

"Vill he be jost the same?" he wondered. "Ah, if he is changed I shall
veep!"

He rushed into the smoking-room, and there, instead of any bald
notability or spectacled statesman, there advanced to meet him a merely
private English gentleman, tolerably young, undeniably good-looking, and
graced with the most debonair of smiles.

"My dear Bonker!" cried the Baron, crimsoning with joy. "Ach, how
pleased I am!"

"Baron!" replied his visitor gaily. "You cannot deceive me--that
waistcoat was made in Germany! Let me lead you to a respectable tailor!"

Yet, despite his bantering tone, it was easy to see that he took an
equal pleasure in the meeting.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Baron, "vot a fonny zing to say! Droll as ever,
eh?"

"Five years less droll than when we first met," said the late Bunker and
present Essington. "You meet a dullish dog, Baron--a sobered reveller."

"Ach, no! Not surely? Do not disappoint me, dear Bonker!"

The Baron's plaintive note seemed to amuse his friend.

"You don't mean to say you actually wish a boon companion? You, Baron,
the modern Talleyrand, the repository of three emperors' secrets? My
dear fellow, I nearly came in deep mourning."

"Mourning! For vat?"

"For our lamented past: I supposed you would have the air of a
Nonconformist beadle."

"My friend!" said the Baron eagerly, and yet with a lowering of his
voice, "I vould not like to engage a beadle mit jost ze same feelings
as me. Come here to zis corner and let us talk! Vaiter!
whisky--soda--cigars--all for two. Come, Bonker!"

Stretched in arm-chairs, in a quiet corner of the room, the two surveyed
one another with affectionate and humorous interest. For three years
they had not seen one another at all, and save once they had not met
for five. In five years a man may change his religion or lose his hair,
inherit a principality or part with a reputation, grow a beard or
turn teetotaler. Nothing so fundamental had happened to either of our
friends. The Baron's fullness of contour we have already noticed; in
Mandell-Essington, EX Bunker, was to be seen even less evidence of
the march of time. But years, like wheels upon a road, can hardly pass
without leaving in their wake some faint impress, however fair the
weather, and perhaps his hair lay a fraction of an inch higher up the
temple, and in the corners of his eyes a hint might even be discerned of
those little wrinkles that register the smiles and frowns. Otherwise
he was the same distinguished-looking, immaculately dressed, supremely
self-possessed, and charming Francis Bunker, whom the Baron's memory
stored among its choicer possessions.

"Tell me," demanded the Baron, "vat you are doing mit yourself, mine
Bonker."

"Doing?" said Essington, lighting his cigar. "Well, my dear Baron, I am
endeavoring to live as I imagine a gentleman should."

"And how is zat?"

"Riding a little, shooting a little, and occasionally telling the truth.
At other times I cock a wise eye at my modest patrimony, now and then I
deliver a lecture with magic-lantern slides; and when I come up to town
I sometimes watch cricket-matches. A devilish invigorating programme,
isn't it?"

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Baron again; he had come prepared to laugh, and
carried out his intention religiously. "But you do not feel more old and
sober, eh?"

"I don't want to, but no man can avoid his destiny. The natives of this
island are a serious people, or if they are frivolous, it is generally a
trifle vulgarly done. The diversions of the professedly gay-hooting
over pointless badinage and speculating whose turn it is to get divorced
next--become in time even more sobering than a scientific study with
diagrams of how to breed pheasants or play golf. If some one would teach
us the simple art of being light-hearted he would deserve to be placed
along with Nelson on his monument."

"Oh, my dear vellow!" cried the Baron. "Do I hear zese kind of vords
from you?"

"If you starved a city-full of people, wouldn't you expect to hear the
man with the biggest appetite cry loudest?"

The Baron's face fell further and Essington laughed aloud.

"Come, Baron, hang it! You of all people should be delighted to see me
a fellow-member of respectable society. I take you to be the type of the
conventional aristocrat. Why, a fellow who's been travelling in Germany
said to me lately, when I asked about you--'Von Blitzenberg,' said he,
'he's used as a simile for traditional dignity. His very dogs have to
sit up on their hind-legs when he inspects the kennels!'"

The Baron with a solemn face gulped down his whisky-and-soda.

"Zat is not true about my dogs," he replied, "but I do confess my life
is vary dignified. So moch is expected of a Blitzenberg. Oh, ja, zere is
moch state and ceremony."

"And you seem to thrive on it."

"Vell, it does not destroy ze appetite," the Baron admitted; "and it
is my duty so to live at Fogelschloss, and I alvays vish to do my duty.
But, ach, sometimes I do vant to kick ze trace!"

"You mean you would want to if it were not for the Baroness?"

Bunker smiled whimsically; but his friend continued as simply serious as
ever.

"Alicia is ze most divine woman in ze world--I respect her, Bonker, I
love her, I gonsider her my better angel; but even in Heaven, I suppose,
peoples sometimes vould enjoy a stroll in Piccadeelly, or in some vay
to exercise ze legs and shout mit excitement. No doubt you zink it
unaccountable and strange--pairhaps ungrateful of me, eh?"

"On the contrary, I feel as I should if I feared this cigar had gone out
and then found it alight after all."

"You say so! Ah, zen I will have more boldness to confess my heart!
Bonker, ven I did land in England ze leetle thought zat vould rise
vas--'Ze land of freedom vunce again! Here shall I not have to be
alvays ze Baron von Blitzenberg, oldest noble in Bavaria, hereditary
