



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
