Excerpt from Chapter I: He's just an infernal dude, your lordship, and I'll throw him in the river if he says a word too much." "He has already said too much, Tompkins, confound him, don't you know." "Then I 'm to throw him in whether he says anything or not, sir?" "Have you seen him?" "No, your lordship, but James has. James says he wears a red coat and-" "Never mind, Tompkins. He has no right to fish on this side of that log. The insufferable ass may own the land on the opposite side, but, confound his impertinence, I own it on this side." This concluding assertion of the usually placid but now irate Lord Bazelhurst was not quite as momentous as it sounded. As a matter of fact, the title to the land was vested entirely in his young American wife; his sole possession, according to report, being a title much less substantial but a great deal more picturesque than the large, much-handled piece of paper down in the safety deposit vault-lying close and crumpled among a million sordid, homely little slips called coupons.