'There were men here on this very spot,' he'd say, 'looking
out for attack, eating, drinking, cooking their food, polishing their
weapons, laughing, and shouting--MEN--Selden, fifty-five years before
Christ was born--and sometimes the New Testament times seem to us so far
away that they are half a dream.' That was the kind of thing he'd say,
and I'd sometimes feel as if I heard the Romans shouting. The country
about there was full of queer places, and both he and Lord Dunstan knew
more about them than I know about Twenty-third Street."
"You saw Lord Mount Dunstan often?" Mr. Vanderpoel suggested.
"Every day, sir. And the more I saw him, the more I got to like
him. He's all right. But it's hard luck to be fixed as he is--that's
stone-cold truth. What's a man to do? The money he ought to have to keep
up his place was spent before he was born. His father and his eldest
brother were a bum lot, and his grandfather and great-grandfather
were fools. He can't sell the place, and he wouldn't if he could.
Mr. Penzance was so fond of him that sometimes he'd say things. But,"
hastily, "perhaps I'm talking too much."
"You happen to be talking about questions I have been greatly interested
in.
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