great big body, and rubs its top-knot against his
sallow double chin in the most caressing manner
imaginable. He has only to set the doors of the
canaries' cages open, and to call to them; and the
pretty little cleverly trained creatures perch
fearlessly on his hand, mount his fat out-stretched
fingers one by one, when he tells them
to "go up-stairs," and sing together as if they
would burst their throats with delight, when
they get to the top finger. His white mice live
in a little pagoda of gaily-painted wirework,
designed and made by himself. They are almost
as tame as the canaries, and they are perpetually
let out, like the canaries. They crawl all over
him, popping in and out of his waistcoat, and
sitting in couples, white as snow, on his capa-
cious shoulders. He seems to be even fonder
of his mice than of his other pets, smiles at them,
and kisses them, and calls them by all sorts of
endearing names. If it be possible to suppose
an Englishman with any taste for such childish
interests and amusements as these, that Englishman
would certainly feel rather ashamed of them,
and would be anxious to apologise for them, in
the company of grown-up people. But the
Count, apparently, sees nothing ridiculous in the
amazing contrast between his colossal self and
his frail little pets. He would blandly kiss his
white mice, and twitter to his canary-birds amid
an assembly of English fox-hunters, and would
only pity them as barbarians when they were all
laughing their loudest at him.

It seems hardly credible, while I am writing
it down, but it is certainly true, that this same
man, who has all the fondness of an old maid
for his cockatoo, and all the small dexterities of
an organ-boy in managing his white mice, can
talk, when anything happens to rouse him, with
a daring independence of thought, a knowledge
of books in every language, and an experience
of society in half the capitals of Europe, which
would make him the prominent personage of
any assembly in the civilised world. This trainer
of canary-birds, this architect of a pagoda for
white mice, is (as Sir Percival himself has told
me) one of the first experimental chemists
living, and has discovered, among other wonderful
inventions, a means of petrifying the
body after death, so as to preserve it, as hard
as marble, to the end of time. This fat, indolent,
elderly man, whose nerves are so finely
strung that he starts at chance noises, and
winces when he sees a house-spaniel get a whipping,
went into the stable-yard, on the morning
after his arrival, and put his hand on the head
of a chained bloodhound— a beast so savage
that the very groom who feeds him keeps out of
his reach. His wife and I were present, and I
shall not soon forget the scene that followed
short as it was.

"Mind that dog, sir," said the groom; "he
flies at everybody!" "He does that, my friend,"
replied the Count, quietly, "because everybody
is afraid of him. Let us see if he flies at me."
And he laid his plump, yellow-white fingers, on
which the canary-birds had been perching ten
minutes before, upon the formidable brute's
head; and looked him straight in the eyes.
"You big dogs are all cowards," he said, addressing
the animal contemptuously, with his
face and the dog's within an inch of each other.
"You would kill a poor cat, you infernal coward.
You would fly at a starving beggar, you infernal
coward. Anything that you can surprise unawares
— anything that is afraid of your big body,
and your wicked white teeth, and your slobbering,
bloodthirsty mouth, is the thing you like to
fly at. You could throttle me at this moment,
you mean, miserable bully; and you daren't so
much as look me in the face, because I'm not
afraid of you. Will you think better of it, and
try your teeth in my fat neck? Bah! not you!"
He turned away, laughing at the astonishment
of the men in the yard; and the dog crept back
meekly to his kennel. "Ah! my nice waistcoat!"
he said, pathetically. " I am sorry I came here.
Some of that brute's slobber has got on my
pretty clean waistcoat." Those words express
another of his incomprehensible oddities. He
is as fond of fine clothes as the veriest fool in
existence; and has appeared in four magnificent
waistcoats, already— all of light garish colours,
and all immensely large even for him in the
two days of his residence at Blackwater Park.

His tact and cleverness in small things are
quite as noticeable as the singular inconsistencies
in his character, and the childish triviality of
his ordinary tastes and pursuits.

I can see already that he means to live on excellent
terms with all of us, during the period of
his sojourn in this place. He has evidently discovered
that Laura secretly dislikes him (she
confessed as much to me, when I pressed her on
the subject)— but he has also found out that she
is extravagantly fond of flowers. Whenever she
wants a nosegay, he has got one to give her,
gathered and arranged by himself; and, greatly
to my amusement, he is always cunningly provided
with a duplicate, composed of exactly the
same flowers, grouped in exactly the same way,
to appease his icily jealous wife, before she can
so much as think herself aggrieved. His management
of the Countess (in public) is a sight to
see. He bows to her; he habitually addresses
her as "my angel;"  he carries his canaries to
pay her little visits on his fingers, and to sing
to her; he kisses her hand, when she gives him
his cigarettes; he presents her with sugar-plums,
in return, which he puts into her mouth
playfully, from a box in his pocket. The rod of
iron with which he rules her never appears in
company— it is a private rod, and is always kept
up-stairs.

His method of recommending himself to me,
is entirely different. He has discovered (Heaven
only knows how) that ready-made sentiment is
thrown away on my blunt, matter-of-fact nature.
And he flatters my vanity, by talking to me as
seriously and sensibly as if I was a man. Yes!
I can find him out when I am away from him;
I know he flatters my vanity, when I think of
him up here, in my own room— and yet, when
I go down stairs, and get into his company
again, he will blind me again, and I shall be