THE UNKNOWN MR. KENT
straightens everything out; or else they warn the damned public to avoid congregating in groups on any public street, showing any lights at night, making any undue disturbances, or speaking above a whisper, on penalty of being shot dead, instantly, all their goods and likely womenfolk escheating to the crown."
"Um-m-mh! That 's so," thoughtfully observed the baron.
"And I should advise the dear-people-keep-quiet stuff and all that," hastily observed Ubaldo, "otherwise we might have a scrap, and there might not be enough of us. Also eighteen or twenty of the army signed on as soldiers with the understanding that they wouldn't have to do any fighting, and there aren't more than three that could hit a barn with a shotgun at ten paces distance."
Baron Provarsk grinned amiably, and hurriedly wrote another page or two, pausing but once to look up when part of the new army flattened its nose against the panes of the corridor window.
"Pull those curtains across that window so nobody can see in," he growled, irritably. "Also see that handkerchiefs are made part of the regulation uniform. Some of your men—er—rather disturb my cultured side."
The new commander-in-chief dutifully obeyed, then disappeared into the hall and swore, pains-
