"
Then his eyes fell on the Lion, and he nodded to him gravely. "How do
you do?" he said. "I'm coming to live with you for a little time. I
have read about you and your friends over there. It is a hazard of new
fortunes with me, your Majesty, so be kind to me, and if I win, I will
put a new coat of paint on your shield and gild you all over again."
Prentiss smiled obsequiously at the American's pleasantry, but the new
lodger only stared at him.
"He seemed a social gentleman," said the Unicorn, that night, when the
Lion and he were talking it over. "Now the Captain, the whole time he
was here, never gave us so much as a look. This one says he has read
of us."
"And why not?" growled the Lion. "I hope Prentiss heard what he said
of our needing a new layer of gilt. It's disgraceful. You can see that
Lion over Scarlett's, the butcher, as far as Regent Street, and
Scarlett is only one of Salisbury's creations. He received his
Letters-Patent only two years back. We date from Palmerston."
The lodger came up the street just at that moment, and stopped and
looked up at the Lion and the Unicorn from the sidewalk, before he
opened the door with his night-key. They heard him enter the room and
feel on the mantel for his pipe, and a moment later he appeared at the
Lion's window and leaned on the sill, looking down into the street
below and blowing whiffs of smoke up into the warm night-air.
It was a night in June, and the pavements were dry under foot and the
streets were filled with well-dressed people, going home from the
play, and with groups of men in black and white, making their way to
supper at the clubs.
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