"You can keep a silent tongue," he said to the usher. "There's profit in
it;" and Wogan put his hand into his pocket. "You have not seen me if
any ask."
"Sir," said the man, "any bright object disturbs my vision."
"You can see a crown, though," said Wogan.
"Through a breeches pocket. But if I held it in my hand--"
"It would dazzle you."
"So much that I should be blind to the giver."
The crown was offered and taken.
Wogan went quietly down the stairs into the hall. There were a few
lackeys at the door, but they would not concern themselves at all
because Mr. Wogan had returned to Bologna. He looked carefully out into
the street, chose a moment when it was empty, and hurried across it. He
dived into the first dark alley that he came to, and following the wynds
and byways of the town made his way quickly to his lodging. He had the
key to his door in his pocket, and he now kept it ready in his hand.
From the shelter of a corner he watched again till the road was clear;
he even examined the windows of the neighbouring houses lest somewhere a
pair of eyes might happen to be alert. Then he made a run for his door,
opened it without noise, and crept secretly as a thief up the stairs to
his rooms, where he had the good fortune to find his servant. Wogan had
no need to sign to him to be silent. The man was a veteran corporal of
French Guards who after many seasons of campaigning in Spain and the Low
Countries had now for five years served Mr. Wogan. He looked at his
master and without a word went off to make his bed.
Wogan sat down and went carefully over in his mind every minute of the
time since he had entered Bologna. No one had noticed him when he rode
in as the lady's postillion,--no one. He was sure of that. The lady
herself did not know him from Adam, and fancied him an Italian into the
bargain--of that, too, he had no doubt. The handful of lackeys at the
door of the King's house need not be taken into account. They might
gossip among themselves, but Wogan's appearances and disappearances were
so ordinary a matter, even that was unlikely. The usher's silence he had
already secured. There was only one acquaintance who had met and spoken
with him, and that by the best of good fortune was Harry
Whittington,--the idler who took his banishment and his King's
misfortunes with an equally light heart, and gave never a thought at all
to anything weightier than a gamecock.