A few days passed in the most entertaining manner. A menu of amusements
was regularly prepared suitable to a catholic taste, and at every turn the
Baron was struck by the enterprise and originality of his friend. He had,
however, a national bent for serious inquiry, and now and then doubts
crossed his mind whether, with all his moral drawing, he was acquiring
quite as much solid information as he had set out to gain. This idea grew
upon him, till one morning, after gazing for some time at the English
newspaper he always made a point of reading, he suddenly exclaimed,
“Bonker, I haf a doubt!”
“I have many,” replied Mr Bunker; “in fact, I have few positive ideas
left.”
“Bot mine is a particulair doubt. Do I lairn enoff?”
“My own conception of enough learning, Baron, is a thing like a
threepenny-bit—the smallest coin one can do one’s marketing with.”
“And yet,” said the Baron, solemnly, “for my own share, I am not
satisfied. I vould lairn more of ze British institutions; so far I haf
lairned of ze pleasures only.”
“My dear Baron, they are the British institutions.”
The Baron shook his head and fell to his paper again, while Mr Bunker
stretched himself on the sofa and gazed through his cigar-smoke at the
ceiling. Suddenly the Baron gave an exclamation of horror.
“My dear Baron, what is the matter?”
“Yet anozer outrage!” cried the Baron. “Zese anarchists, zey are too
scandalous. At all ze stations zere are detectives, and all ze ships are
being vatched. Ach, it is terrible!”
Mr Bunker seemed struck with an idea, for he stared at the ceiling without
making any reply, and his eyes, had the Baron seen them, twinkled
curiously.
At last the Baron laid down his paper.
“Vell, vat shall ve do?” he asked.
“Let us come first to Liverpool Street Station, if you don’t mind, Baron,”
his friend suggested. “I have something in the cloak-room there I want to
pick up.”
“My dear Bonker, I shall go vere you vill; bot remember I vant to-day more
instrogtion and less entertainment.”
“You wish to see the practical side of English life?”
“Yah—zat is, yes.”
Mr Bunker smiled.
“Then I must entertain myself.”
As they drove down he was in his wittiest humour, and the Baron, in spite
of his desire for instruction, was more charmed with his friend than ever.
“Vat fonny zing vill you do next, eh?” he asked, as they walked arm-in-arm
into the station.
“I am no more the humourist, my dear Baron,—I shall endeavour to edify
you.”
They had arrived at a busy hour, when the platforms were crowded with
passengers and luggage. A train had just come in, and around it the bustle
was at its height, and the confusion most bewildering.
“Wait for me here,” said Mr Bunker; “I shall be back in a minute.”
He started in the direction of the cloak-room, and then, doubling back
through the crowd, walked down the platform and stopped opposite a
luggage-van. An old gentleman, beside himself with irritation, was
struggling with the aid of a porter to collect his luggage, and presently
he left the pile he had got together and made a rush in the direction of a
large portmanteau that was just being tumbled out. Instantly Mr Bunker
picked up a handbag from the heap and walked quickly off with it.
“Here you are, Baron,” he said, as he came up to his friend. “I find there
is something else I must do, so do you mind holding this bag for a few
minutes? If you will walk up and down in front of the refreshment-rooms
here, I’ll find you more easily. Is it troubling you too much?”
“Not vun bit, Bonker. I am in your sairvice.”
He put the bag into the Baron’s hand with his pleasantest smile, and
turned away. Rounding a corner, he came cautiously back again through the
crowd and stepped up to a policeman.
“Keep your eye on that man, officer,” he said, in a low confidential
voice, and an air of quiet authority, “and put your plain clothes’ men on
his track. I know him for one of the most dangerous anarchists.”
The man started and stared hard at the Baron, and presently that
unconscious nobleman, pacing the platform in growing wonder at Mr Bunker’s
lengthy absence, and looking anxiously round him on all sides, noticed
with surprise that a number of quietly dressed men, with no apparent
business in the station, were eyeing him with, it seemed to him, an
interest that approached suspicion. In time he grew annoyed, he returned
their glances with his haughtiest and most indignant look, and finally,
stepping up to one of them, asked in no friendly voice, “Vat for do you
vatch me?”
The man returned an evasive answer, and passing one of his
fellow-officers, whispered, “Foreign; I was sure of it.”
At last the Baron could stand it no longer, and laying the bag down by the
door of the refreshment-room, turned hastily away. On the instant Mr
Bunker, who had watched these proceedings from a safe distance, cried in a
loud and agonised voice, “Down with your men, sergeant! Down, lie down! It
will explode in twenty seconds!”
And as he spoke he threw himself flat on his face. So infectious were his
commanding voice and his note of alarm that one after another, detectives,
passengers, and porters, cast themselves at full length on the platform.
The Baron, filled with terror of anarchist plots, was one of the first to
prostrate himself, and at that there could be no further doubt of the
imminence of the peril.
The cabs rattled and voices sounded from outside; an engine whistled and
shunted at a far platform, but never before at that hour of the day had
Liverpool Street Station been so silent. All held their breath and heard
their hearts thump as they gazed in horrible fascination at that fatal
bag, or with closed eyes stumbled through a hasty prayer. Fully a minute
passed, and the suspense was growing intolerable, when with a loud oath an
old gentleman rose to his feet and walked briskly up to the bag.
“Have a care, sir! For Heaven’s sake have a care!” cried Mr Bunker; but
the old gentleman merely bent over the terrible object, and, picking it
up, exclaimed in bewildered wrath, “It’s my bag! Who the devil brought it
here, and what’s the meaning of this d—d nonsense?”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” roared Mr Bunker; while like sheepish mushrooms the
people sprang up on all sides.
“My dear sir,” said Mr Bunker, coming up to the old gentleman, and raising
his hat with his most affable air, “permit me to congratulate you on
recovering your lost property, and allow me further to introduce my friend
the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”
“Baron von damned-humbug!” cried the old gentleman. “Did you take my bag,
sir? and if so, are you a thief or a lunatic?”
For an instant even Mr Bunker himself seemed a trifle taken aback; then he
replied politely, “I am not a thief, sir.”
“Then what _’ave_ you been doing?” demanded the sergeant.
“Merely demonstrating to my friend the Baron the extraordinary vigilance
of the English police.”
For a time neither the old gentleman nor the sergeant seemed quite capable
of taking the same view of the episode as Mr Bunker, and, curiously
enough, the Baron seemed not disinclined to let his friend extricate
himself as best he could. No one, however, could resist Mr Bunker, and
before very long he and the Baron were driving up Bishopsgate Street
together, with the old gentleman’s four-wheeler lumbering in front of
them.
“Well, Baron, are you satisfied with your morning’s instruction?” asked
his friend.
“A German nobleman is not used to be in soch a position,” replied the
Baron, stiffly.
“You must admit, however, that the object-lesson in the detection of
anarchy was neatly presented.”
“I admit nozing of ze kind,” said the Baron, stolidly.
For the rest of the drive he sat obdurately silent. He went to his room
with the mien of an offended man. During lunch he only opened his lips to
eat.
On his side Mr Bunker maintained a cheerful composure, and seemed not a
whit put about by his friend’s lack of appreciation.
“Anozzer bottle of claret,” said the Baron, gruffly, to a waiter.
Mr Bunker let him consume it entirely by himself, awaiting the results
with patience. Gradually his face relaxed a little, until all at once,
when the bump in the bottom of the bottle was beginning to appear above
the wine, the whole room was startled by a stentorian, “Ha, ha, ha!”
“My dear Bonker!” cried the Baron, when he had finished laughing, “forgif
me! I begin for to see ze moral, ha, ha, ha!”