The Napoleon of Notting Hill
He rose with a startling suddenness, and an unusual pallor.
"Gentlemen," he said, "you have overruled me. Therefore I can speak plainly. I think Adam Wayne, who is as mad as a hatter, worth more than a million of you. But you have the force, and, I admit, the common sense, and he is lost. Take your eight hundred halberdiers and smash him. It would be more sportsmanlike to take two hundred."
"More sportsmanlike," said Buck, grimly, "but a great deal less humane. We are not artists, and streets purple with gore do not catch our eye in the right way."
"It is pitiful," said Auberon. "With five or six times their number there will be no fight at all."
"I hope not," said Buck, rising and adjusting his gloves. "We desire no fight, your Majesty. We are peaceable business men."
"Well," said the King, wearily, "the conference is at an end at last."
And he went out of the room before any one else could stir. ······ Forty workmen, a hundred Bayswater Halberdiers, two hundred from South, and three from North Kensington, assembled at the foot of Hol-
