Mitsubishi Forklift SBP16N2 SBP16N2I Diagrams, Service Manual

Mitsubishi Forklift SBP16N2 SBP16N2I

Diagrams, Service Manual
To download the complete and correct content, please visit:

https://manualpost.com/download/mitsubishi-forklift-sbp16n2-sbp16n2i-diagrams-s
ervice-manual/

**Mitsubishi Forklift SBP16N2 SBP16N2I Diagrams, Service Manual** Size: 42.9

MB Format: PDF Language: English Brand: Mitsubishi Type of Machine: Forklift

Visit ManualPost.com to get correct and complete item

Mitsubishi Forklift SBP16N2 SBP16N2I Diagrams, Service Manual

Type of Manual: Diagrams, Service Manual Model: Mitsubishi SBP16N2

SBP16N2I Forklift Content: (Publication Type) (Support Number) (Title)
(Publication Date) Service Manual 616840-B-01 Chassis and Mast: Foreword
03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-02 Chassis and Mast: How to read this manual
03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-03 Chassis and Mast: Safety instructions
03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-04 Chassis and Mast: General information
03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-05a Chassis and Mast: Mechanical
maintenance 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-05b Chassis and Mast:
Mechanical maintenance 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-05c Chassis and
Mast: Mechanical maintenance 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-05d Chassis
and Mast: Mechanical maintenance 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-06 Chassis
and Mast: Electrical operation 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-07 Chassis and
Mast: Battery maintenance 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-08 Chassis and
Mast: Electric system maintenance 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-09 Chassis
and Mast: Electric system adjustments and measurements 03/2017 Service
Manual 616840-B-10 Chassis and Mast: Hydraulic operation 03/2017 Service
Manual 616840-B-11 Chassis and Mast: TruckTool Diagnostics 03/2017 Service
Manual 616840-B-12 Chassis and Mast: Parameter descriptions 03/2017 Service
Manual 616840-B-13 Chassis and Mast: Alarm codes 03/2017 Service Manual
616840-B-14 Chassis and Mast: Service data 03/2017 Service Manual
616840-B-15 Chassis and Mast: Options 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-16
Chassis and Mast: Technical specification 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-17a
Circuit diagrams (Rev. N) (2011-2017) 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-17b
Circuit diagrams (Rev. B) (201
03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-18 Circuit diagrams: New tiller arm (Rev. E)
03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-19 Hydraulic diagram (including sidesupport
legs) 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-20 Parameters: Traction controller - Zapi
CombiAC-X 165A/270A v0.32 03/2017 Service Manual 616840-B-21 Manual:
Traction controller - Zapi CombiAC-X & AC- EX User manual 03/2017
Download all on: manualpost.com.

Visit ManualPost.com to get correct and complete item

 [Unrelated content]
Another random document on
Internet:
 "It's not my fault," Peckover urged coolly, having drunk champagne
sufficient for a reckless enjoyment of the controversy, "if the girl fancies a
change. It's your business to make yourself sufficiently interesting to keep
her affection. If you don't, well, I may as well take her on as any other
fellow."

"Don't you talk a lot of conceited nonsense," retorted Gage, keeping

down his fury with an effort. "The girl's all right: but she's led by your
infernal monkey tricks into thinking that I'm neglecting her; so naturally she
pretends to take up with you."

"Well, that's one way of looking at it," Peckover observed with vinous
sarcasm.

"It's the only intelligent way," Gage returned.

"From your point of view," his friend rejoined, tossing off a glass of port
wine.

"It's from my point of view that we've got to look at the affair," Gage
said, with rising anger, for the other's coolness and confidence were more
exasperating than his words. "And," he proceeded, banging his fist on the
table, "my view of the case is, that if you don't stop your little game and
sheer off the Buffkin there's going to be a row."

"I wouldn't," observed Peckover sententiously, "have anything to do with

a girl, however good-looking, for whom my sole attraction was my title,
and who didn't mind showing as much."

"Has she told you that?" Gage snapped.

Peckover shrugged. "Practically."

"Of course," Gage returned with an ugly mouth, "that's because she's
huffy with me, thinking I'm not so keen on her as I ought to be, and you
are."
 "I suppose her feelings don't count," Peckover retorted, being pretty sure
of himself with the fair Ulrica.

"Mine do, at any rate," Gage declared wrathfully. "I've been humbugged
enough over this precious title. And as to your expecting me first to take on
your revolting Australian pet and then to give up a girl like Ulrica Buffkin,
why, you don't diagnose my character right, that's all. This is my show. I'm
paying for it, and I'm going to run it."

"Then," returned Peckover, still cool and unmoved by his friend's

thumping and shouting, "you'd better make it your business to see who that
is prowling round the booth."

Gage's irate eyes followed Peckover's nod to the window. Outside, just
discernible in the dusk, the figure of a man was moving to and fro. Gage
jumped up and threw open the French window.

"Who are you? What do you want here?" he demanded in a rough and
unnecessarily loud tone. Peckover rose and lounged against the
mantelpiece, cigar in mouth, lazily interested in the encounter.

The man outside stopped, turned, brought his heels together, and made a
low bow. "Have I the honour to address myself to his Excellency the Lord
Quorn?" he asked in a high-pitched voice and foreign accent.

"You have. What do you want?" was the ill-matching, even brutal, reply.

The man approached the window; then bowed again. "I have the honour
of the friendship of the most gracious Lady Ormstork," he said. "As one
who enjoys that privilege, I trust I may not be regarded as a trespasser."

He spoke with such ceremonious politeness that Gage was shamed into
gulping down his ill-humour and softening his mode of address. "What can
I do for you?" he inquired.

"I have," said the stranger with another courteous flourish, "already
given myself the high pleasure of surveying your charming park and castle
by moonlight. It is romantic, it is enchanting. And now there but remains to
me to crave the honour of a short conference with your lordship. Am I
permitted, then, to flatter myself that my request is granted?"

"Oh, yes. Step in," said Gage, not over cordially.

"Before I so unceremoniously cross the threshold of your window,"

observed the man with another bow, "permit me to announce myself—my
name and condition." With more flourishes he produced a pocket-book
almost entirely covered with an immense gold coronet and cypher, extracted
therefrom a card of unusual dimensions, and with a deep bow presented it
to Gage, who drew back into the light, glanced at it, and showed it with a
wink to Peckover; that worthy greeting the information it conveyed with a
low whistle of amusement.

"Your friend——?" said the stranger with a low bow to Peckover.

"Mr. Gage."

"Ah? I have heard of him too. Mr. Gage, I have the honour." And he
bowed again.

When at last he resumed an upright position with some prospect of

permanency, the friends could see what manner of man the stranger looked.
He was small, wiry and rather bald. His bristling moustache turned up from
under the longest nose and above the most prominent jaw nearly into the
fiercest eyes they had ever seen. With less aggressively piercing eyes he
would have been rather a comical figure; as it was, except when he shut
them (which he had a trick of doing), or hid them by bowing, he was no
laughing matter. His jutting chin wore a closely clipped Vandyck beard, and
his clothes were black.

Both men, as they regarded him, tried to persuade themselves that they
were amused, without, however, the result being quite convincing.

"I have the honour," said the stranger, inclining his head and shutting his
eyes, "to request—I do not say, demand—the grace of a few words with my
Lord Quorn and his honourable friend."
 "Have a glass of wine?" Gage proposed.

The stranger made a stately gesture of refusal. "We have a proverb in my

country, Spain," he said, "'The thistle before the fig.' You are too kind. But
with your permission I will defer the acceptance of your gracious
hospitality for the present."

"Not a cigar?" Peckover suggested, pushing along the box.

Again the pantomime of refusal. "At considerable pain to myself, I must

decline—at least till I have done my poor best to make myself understood,"
the man replied, with his eyes shut. "Nevertheless, you will not impose
upon me the heavier penalty of seeing you forego the enjoyment of your
own cigars?"

They bowed, none the less appreciatively that neither man had
entertained the slightest intention of doing so. But they were strangely
subdued. Somehow, ridiculous as they assured themselves it was, the
stranger's personality chained and fascinated them. He was a little man with
an absurd nose, but—— They found themselves staring at him, drinking in
every detail, every flourish, as he drew forward a chair with a gesture of
asking permission, then sat down and faced them with a quiet mastery of
the situation which was horribly disconcerting. So they waited in a silence,
half apprehensive, half quizzical, for him to begin, not without a shrewd
idea of the purport of the approaching communication.

At length with a preliminary flourish of a ringed hand, and an effective

raising and dropping of the fierce eyes, he began.

"You will have already graciously noted by the acceptance of my poor

card that it is the Duke of Salolja, Hereditary Grand Sword Bearer to his
Most Gracious Majesty the King of Spain, Lord Keeper of the Royal Vaults,
Duke also of Oswalta, Marques of Risposta, with many other titles and
offices, and a Grandee of Spain,"—at the recital of each succeeding dignity
he raised his voice till at the culminating title the reverberation made the
glass rattle—"who has the honour to address your grace."
 Both men bowed, and at the same time did their best not to feel much
smaller than the diminutive duke who held them as an undersized
rattlesnake might fascinate a couple of finches.

"I must begin," said the duke, with what looked like the dangerous calm
of a quiescent volcano, "by craving your grace's most amiable patience
while I touch, very briefly, on a few points which stand out in my family
history, the chronicles of the noble House of Salolja, of which I have the
honour to be the present unworthy representative."

Peckover glanced at Gage and his look said, "Family history. We've got
hold of a crank," and they both looked less uneasy.

"Families have their characteristics and idiosyncrasies," pursued the

duke, nodding his head to and fro sententiously. "In my country, Spain, this
is peculiarly the case. Family tradition is strong, it is tenacious, inexorable,
immovable." At each succeeding adjective his voice rose till it reached the
climax in an intense scream. Then he dropped back quite casually into a
conversational tone, and proceeded—

"It is a notorious tradition in my family that we never suffer an interloper

in affairs of the heart."

The faces of his two listeners indicated a realization that he was now
coming to business, and their interest visibly quickened.

"In the year," the duke threw back his head, as though searching for the
date in the ceiling, "1582, my noble ancestor, Alfonzo de Salolja was
pleased to love a Castilian lady of great beauty, Donna Inez de Madrazo. A
certain vain Hidalgo, one Lopez de Fulano, was rash enough to cast eyes on
her and enter the lists with him. Alfonzo did not insult the lady by
questioning her preference. He ran de Fulano through the heart. His blood is
still to be seen on the Toledo blade which hangs in my poor palace in
Segovia."

He paused to let the anecdote soak in, before pouring out another. His
audience looked interested, but uncertain in what spirit to take the recital.
 "Nearly a hundred years after that," the duke resumed, chattily
reminiscent, "a rash Frenchman, the Comte de Gaufrage, suffered himself to
indulge a passion for the lovely Donna Astoria de Rivaz y Cortano, heiress
of the de Rivaz lands and wealth. Duke Miguel de Salolja, who at that date
represented my honoured family, heard of this breach of punctilio on the
morning of the day he had appointed for offering the fair Astoria his hand
and dukedom. By noon the Comte de Gaufrage was in Purgatory and Duke
Miguel in Paradise."

"Both killed?" asked Gage.

"Cut him out?" suggested Peckover.

"My ancestor," the duke replied in stately tones and with a flash of the
eyes, "did not die till thirty years later. And," he turned to his second
questioner with a bow and a wave of the hand, "permit me to tell your
Excellency, no duke of the Saloljas ever stooped to 'cut out' as you term it.
We do not enter into competition. We have a shorter and more effectual
way. I may explain that by noon the Comte was in his coffin, and Duke
Miguel accepted by the lady."

The tone seemed to snub their denseness of comprehension. Peckover

accepted the elucidation with a faint and inept smile.

For a few moments there was silence as the duke sat immobile;
confident in, as it were, the cloak of homicidal tradition in which he had
wrapped himself.

Then with a suddenness which made the two jump (for he was beginning
to get on their nerves) he plunged again into his blood-stained narrative.

"To pass over many like instances of this family trait, and come to
comparatively modern times," he said pleasantly, "it happened to my great
grandfather, Duke Christofero, to commit a deplorable mistake. He and his
neighbour, the Prince de Carmona, unknown to each other, loved two
sisters, the daughters of the Marques de Montalban. One night they both
determined to serenade their respective lady-loves. When the duke arrived
at the Castle he heard a guitar, and came upon the unfortunate Prince
beneath the windows of the ladies' apartments. Only when he was drawing
his rapier out of the Prince's left lung did he learn that it was Donna Maria
and not Donna Lola for whom the compliment had been intended. It was
unfortunate; nevertheless it tends to illustrate the working of the traditional
law which governs our house."

"Oh, yes. I believe that sort of mistake did often happen in the good old
times," was the not altogether confident remark of Peckover, who felt he
must make a stand against this sanguinary catalogue.

A flash from the duke's remarkable eyes, brought any further tendency to
volubility to a full stop.

"Such occurrences," he said pointedly, "are, pardon me, by no means

confined to bygone times. The traditions of my house will end only when
my race is a thing of the past. In the year—to venture with your courteous
permission to resume—in the year 1841, a titled compatriot of your own,
Sir Digby Prior, allowed himself at one of the Escurial balls the freedom of
paying too much attention to my father's fiancée, the sainted lady whose
unworthy son I have the honour to be. Next morning they met on the Buen
Retiro Park, from whence in that same hour Sir Digby was carried with a
bullet in his brain. Yes!" He sighed reflectively. "It is not perhaps a cheerful,
or agreeable record; still it is curious and interesting to trace the same
inevitable characteristic of our blood in almost each succeeding
generation."

"Very," Gage agreed.

"Most singular," Peckover chimed in mechanically, as he tried to fall into

a pose of polite indifference under the duke's eye.

The little man received their appreciative commonplaces with a grave

bow. "We have now arrived at a point," he said glaring at them, but
speaking with quiet if significant deliberation, "when it becomes my duty to
claim the honour of your unwavering attention."

The request was in the highest degree unnecessary. Both men were
incapable of greater heed than they were already giving. "Now it's coming,"
was the simultaneous and uneasy thought in their minds.

"But I fear the politeness with which your graces have brought
yourselves to listen to my long preamble has caused your cigars to
extinguish themselves," remarked the duke, with an ambassadorial smile.
"Pray let me have the supreme pleasure of seeing you relight them."

CHAPTER XXXI

"Having now," resumed the duke, when the two men had, with a fine
affectation of nonchalance, but with somewhat unsteady hands, lighted up
again, "taken you through as much of the history of my family as to persons
of your acuteness of perception is necessary, I have the honour to invite
your attention to the moral of my house's story."

His listeners, by this time mentally detached from each other, and held
pitilessly and without respite by those auger-like eyes, puffed nervously at
their now tasteless cigars, and by their apprehensive silence bade him
proceed.

"The present unworthy holder of the dukedom of Salolja," that person

continued, with a deprecatory gesture, "—to leave ancient history behind us
—is for the moment in one of those inexpedient positions to which his
ancestors were occasionally liable, and from which they invariably took
prompt measures to extricate themselves. In the province where we hold
sway there is a proverb, 'A Sololja's rival should make his will.' When one
wishes to describe a useless action, 'It is like granting a lease to the rival of
a Salolja.' Meaning that he does not live to enjoy it. The phrase is
expressive."

"Rather neat," commented Peckover, with an effort.

 "Now to come to the point," pursued their tormentor, his fierce eyes in
singular contrast to his bald head and deliberate speech, "the present Duke
of Salolja—to keep the discussion conveniently impersonal—has made up
his mind to contract an alliance with a certain English lady; a commoner, it
is true, but one whose beauty and wealth may claim to make up, in a
measure, for genealogical deficiencies. The lady's name is Miss Ulrica
Buffkin."

Both hearers nodded an acquaintance with it.

"It has come to the duke's knowledge," continued that same nobleman,
raising his tone to a slightly minatory pitch. "That another person, an
Englishman, I should say an English nobleman, has, unwittingly I am ready
to allow, been led into paying certain attentions to the lady in question. I am
sure that to capable and clever men like yourselves it is not necessary for
me to set myself the disagreeable task of pointing out the inevitable result
of such an unwarranted and deplorable interference should it be persevered
in."

He paused, took out a silk pocket-handkerchief embroidered with a

flamboyant coronet and cypher, and passed it lightly across his lips, never
taking his vicious eyes off the two men who had by this, under the
paralysing gaze, assumed the appearance and almost the condition of a pair
of waxworks.

As the lengthening pause seemed to demand a response, Gage with a

great effort roused himself from the Tussaudy rigidity, and, with a desperate
attempt at boldness, replied—

"You might let us know, while we are on the subject."

"No harm in mentioning it," Peckover chipped in with a somewhat

ghastly pretence of a smile.

The little duke thrust back the handkerchief into his breast pocket, and
then threw out his hands expressively. "I should have imagined," he replied,
with a transcendentally threatening eye, "that men of the sagacity and
penetration of your graces would have found no difficulty in deducing from
the instances you have just heard with such admirable patience, the fate in
store for any one who is rash enough to enter the lists with a Duke of
Salolja."

His voice, rising with abrupt suddenness, thundered out the last words
with a volume and intensity which made his rivals fairly jump in their
uneasy seats. Anyhow, the wordy Grandee had come to the point, and the
point had to be faced or run from.

Gage, whose mode of life had kept his nervous system in better order
than his companion's, was the first to reply.

"That's all very well," he said, bracing himself to join issue with the fiery
little Castilian, and assuming a courage he did not feel. "But this is a free
country; and in these enlightened days you can't run a man through the body
before lunch because your best girl has the good or bad taste to prefer him."

Fury leapt like a flame in the duke's eyes, but he replied calmly, even
suavely, "Your excellency is wrong. What is to prevent me?"

"The police," Peckover suggested promptly, trying to catch boldness

from Gage's attitude.

The duke burst into a loud and particularly unpleasant laugh. "The
police? Really, your graces compel my amusement. May I ask you three
questions?"

"Three dozen, if you like," answered Gage unsteadily.

The duke accepted the bounty with a bow. "Three will suffice."
Whereupon very loudly, "One." Then in a normal tone, "How many police
have you within a radius of, say, three miles from Staplewick Towers?"

"One or two," Gage was forced to answer rather sheepishly.

The duke bowed, this time with a sarcastic smile.

"Two." Again the disturbing, superfluous shout. "How long would it take
you to send for the nearest, supposing you found him at home?"
 "Oh, about twenty minutes," Gage tried to reply casually.

Once more the absurdly loud enumeration. "Three. And how long do you
consider it would take me to put a bullet through your body?"

Simultaneously with the question a glittering object shone in his hand. It

was the highly polished barrel of a revolver which he had whipped out
casually with a deftness which seemed born of practice, and with which he
now covered his rival.

Both men started to their feet with blanched faces.

"Here, I say!" Peckover remonstrated in ill-concealed terror.

"How long?" sang out the little demon of a duke in his commanding
voice. "Oblige me by answering the question."

"A second, I suppose," gasped Gage. "Now please turn that revolver
away."

"That is," proceeded the duke in a tone of satisfaction, "nineteen minutes

and fifty-nine seconds before the policeman arrives." Still holding the
weapon in his hand, but now pointing to the floor, he rose, brought his heels
together and bowed. "I trust, milord Quorn and Mr. Gage, my most
honourable friends, that at length we understand one another." Then he sat
down again, his aggressive eyes moving with mechanical regularity from
one man to the other, since the exigencies of the moment had sent the
friends apart.

But now, throughly roused by the critical situation, Peckover spoke. "I
don't know, my lord dook, whether you are aware that we have strict laws in
this country against murder."

"And," put in Gage, "against carrying firearms without a licence."

The duke laughed scornfully and with superfluous volume. "Do your
Excellencies think we have no such laws in Spain? And do your graces
suppose that if the Dukes of Salolja had cared a fig for them the
occurrences which I have narrated to you would have happened? You hang
a man for what you call murder here. But have you ever heard of your
English law hanging a Grandee of Spain? And do you think you would be
allowed to do so? Pah!" He snapped his fingers with a noise like the crack
of a whip. "What is your English law compared with the immemorial
traditions of the Saloljas? NOTHING! Shall it stand between a Salolja and
his vengeance, his desire? NEVER!"

He shouted the answers to the last two of his many questions with
scornful vehemence. His manner was, no doubt, irritating, and that,
perhaps, accounted for Peckover's boldness.

"You don't bluff us you are above the law," he said, trembling at his own
temerity. "If we haven't hung a Spanish Grandee as yet, it's because none of
you have killed anybody over here that I remember."

The demon duke grinned and spread out his hands before him, as though
sweeping away a feeble protest.

"My gracious friend, you jump at hasty conclusions. Who talks of

killing, of murder. Faugh! It is a vulgar word. Accidents happen, here as in
Spain; deplorable, fatal accidents. Firearms go off, almost of themselves; it
is sad to think how easily they go off. I could tell you stories of such
miserable fatalities in my own family, but you have probably heard enough
of the ways of the Saloljas for one evening. Death is very near us always,"
he continued sententiously. "So near that the healthiest of us is only just
alive. Which of us bears a life worth an hour's purchase? NONE! And the
man who trifles with a Salolja cannot call the next moment his own. There
it is. Accept it or not, it is the truth, the eternal, bitter, naked truth."

His voice was like a Nasmyth hammer, now pounding, roaring, seeming
to shake the room, now gentle and soft as a shy schoolgirl's. As he
concluded his speech his tone sank into a solemn hush, indicative of the
awesome inevitable. For some moments there was silence in the room, save
for the ticking clock. Then, when the tension had lasted as long as was
desirable, the duke rose, and advancing to the table took the finest peach in
the dish. The flashing had now faded from his eyes, and the expression on
his face was truculently amiable.
 "I sincerely hope I have not wearied your excellencies," he observed. "It
has been most condescending and gracious of you to let me explain myself
at such length. A veritable poem of a peach; I have not met its fellow in
England. May I now, since our slight misunderstanding is at an end, do
myself the honour of drinking a glass of wine with your graces?"

Rousing themselves from the gloomy preoccupation of their

discomfiture, their graces, with a quite futile pretence of ease, hastened to
minister to their undesirable visitor's request. That worthy proceeded to toss
off a couple of bumpers with a relish commensurate with his long and
thirst-giving harangue. "If I ask further for one of your graces' excellent
cigars," he suggested with a pleasantness which could not seem other than
grim, "it is as another proof of how unwilling I am to bear malice. Ah!" He
lighted the cigar and blew out a long cloud with evident enjoyment.

"Unlike my ancestors I make allowances," he declared significantly.

"Unlike them again, I never strike without warning. Yes," he added,
dropping his voice into a genial tone; "it is perhaps well for us that we did
not live, and in the same relations one to another, a hundred, two hundred
years ago. At least we should not all three be enjoying these superb cigars."

It was a difficult sentiment for the smarting pair to respond to. "Just so,"
was all Peckover, with an awkward laugh, could think of.

"I am ashamed to have stayed so long," said their guest, with an

expressive glance at the clock. "But it is better to risk missing the strict
punctilio than to have to intrude again. Your excellency's house and park are
delightful. I felicitate myself on my visit. Your cigars are exquisite. I take
another, in token of our better understanding, to enjoy on my way to your
somewhat depressing Great Bunbury. Good-night, milord Quorn. Good-
night, Mr. Gage. A thousand compliments and adieux to you both. May it
never be necessary for us to meet on less amicable terms than those which
prevail between us at present. Once again my most distinguished homage.
Adieu."

With his heels together he made to each man a most profound bow; then
turned to the window, opened it with a sure touch upon the latch, turned
again, bowed, and disappeared into the night.
 For some moments the two men stood staring speechless into the
darkness. Then their eyes met.

"This is a glorious title," said Gage, clipping out the words with bitter
intensity. "I am having a ripping time with it. It's a fine thing to be alive just
now."

"All things considered, it's lucky we are alive," was Peckover's dry but
feeling response.

CHAPTER XXXII

"Tell you what it is, Percival, my boy," said Gage at breakfast next
morning; "I've had about enough of nobility. Grandeur and aristocracy have
too many inconveniences to suit me. I've a mind to clear out, and hand you
back this precious title of yours."

Peckover laughed awkwardly. "Don't do that yet awhile, old man," he

urged. "You haven't given it a fair trial."

"It has given me one," was the prompt and pointed retort. "And it strikes
me if I don't look sharp and get out of the peacock's feathers I shall soon be
pecked to death. That Salolja chap last night was an eye-opener."

"Unpleasant customer," his friend agreed.

"Unpleasant? Noisy little devil!"

"Barking dogs don't bite," observed Peckover, but without conviction.

"I wouldn't trust him," returned Gage with the firmness the other's
remark lacked. "These Spaniards are the very deuce when they're jealous.
They get simply mad. And nobody on this earth is safe from a loose
madman if he takes it into his head to go for you. Our friend, the duke,
meant business."

"Only so long as you interfere between him and Miss Buffkin," Peckover
agreed.

"How was I to know what I was being let in for?" Gage exclaimed in an
aggrieved tone. "When the old lady mentioned a foreign chap who'd been
dancing after Ulrica I naturally thought it was some monkeyish fellow
who'd squirm if you shook hands too hard, and would cry if you spoke to
him unkindly. She never gave us a hint she'd got a bald Beelzebub with a
voice that sends you the jumps and a homicidal history that gives you the
shivers—to say nothing of that sickening revolver. Ugh! I can see the gleam
of it now, as I've seen it all night. I was on the point of trying to get in first
shot with a champagne bottle."

"Yes," Peckover admitted; "I've spent a pleasanter five minutes than

when he was playing with the highly polished popper."

"Well, much more of this and I go back to plain Mr. Gage," that
gentleman declared in a disgusted tone. "They talk of the fierce light that
beats on royalty, but I didn't know the nobility lived in a set-piece of fire-
works with occasional red-fire."

"They can't all of them do it," argued Peckover.

"They are all of 'em liable to it," Gage returned. "The squibs are there,
only waiting for some little complication to come along and touch 'em off.
It is getting on my nerves, and I'm wondering where the next little
disturbance is coming from."

It seemed almost in answer to his thought that, just as he had voiced it,
Bisgood announced that Lady Agatha Hemyock was in the drawing-room.
Theirs was a late breakfast; still the call was early.

"That's where it's coming from," Peckover observed with an uneasy grin.
 Lady Agatha was sympathetically troubled as she shook hands with
them. Her preliminary business was to ask them down to the Moat to tea
that afternoon; but as the men, exchanging significant glances, gladly
accepted the invitation as affording an asylum from any immediate
complications connected with the Duke of Salolja, they both felt that
something more was coming, and of greater moment than a message which
a note would have adequately conveyed. They were not long left in doubt.

"I had another object," said Lady Agatha, pursing her lips and looking
unutterably important, "in paying you this unconventional visit. One has
heard from various sources of the advent of Lady Ormstork to this
neighbourhood. I have even been informed that the lady in question has
gone so far as to call upon you, which is the reason why the Colonel
thought it would be only neighbourly and friendly to give you a word of
warning."

"Anything wrong," Peckover asked apprehensively. His nerves had not

recovered from the previous night's disturbance.

Lady Agatha took a letter from her pocket with business-like

deliberation. "Very wrong—or likely to be," she replied as she slowly
unfolded it, "from what my friend, Lady Bosham tells me. I happened in
writing to mention Lady Ormstork's name as having taken a furnished
house near here, and my friend writes by return imploring me to have
nothing to do with her. A most dangerous woman," she added, presumably
quoting from the closely written letter.

Gage and Peckover caught each other's guilty and apprehensive eyes.

"She has," continued their visitor, confident in the effect she had
produced, "I believe, a young person—a young lady nowadays she would
be called—with her. A Miss Buffkin. A mysterious Miss Buffkin, given out
as an heiress."

"Isn't she an heiress?" Peckover inquired rather foolishly.

Lady Agatha shrugged. "Possibly. That is a matter known only to Lady

Ormstork and Miss Buffkin. But the more vital question is what are Lady
Ormstork's character and intentions."

It was somewhat a relief to both men to find someone else's intentions

called in question.

"Lady Bosham says," proceeded their visitor, "and indeed one has heard
something of the kind vaguely oneself, that Lady Ormstork is notorious for
getting hold of good-looking girls, often of very doubtful origin, and
finding husbands for them—for a consideration."

Both men expressed a surprise which they could scarcely be said to feel.

"According to Lady Bosham, she is a determined and most unscrupulous

woman," continued Lady Agatha, apparently quoting from the report. "Once
she gets people into her toils they find it no easy matter to extricate
themselves."

It occurred to her hearers that there were other titled spreaders of nets
besides the histrionic Lady Ormstork, but they did not say so.

"Of course," said Lady Agatha, with apologetic plausibility, "it is

perhaps a great liberty which I take in venturing to warn you. But being
such close neighbours and friends, and knowing you to be, comparatively
speaking, strangers to this country and some of its less desirable features,
we thought it only right to do so."

"Much obliged to you, I'm sure," responded Gage.

"Quite so," added Peckover.

"Of course," Lady Agatha pursued tentatively, "I am unaware how far
this Lady Ormstork," she spoke the name with withering emphasis, "may
have forced her intimacy upon you. Still, it is better to be forewarned, even
if yours is as yet nothing beyond a formal acquaintance."

"Just so," Gage agreed with balking irresponsiveness.

"Lady Bosham is very strong on the undesirability of these people's

acquaintance," said Lady Agatha rising. "She, that is, Lady Ormstork, is a
terrible old woman when once she gets her tentacles fixed on the victim she
has marked down. But there, I trust I have said enough to sensible men like
yourselves to put you on your guard."

"Quite," replied Gage, wondering where, in it all, the Duke of Salolja

came in.

Lady Agatha took her leave, having made them promise to come early to
the Moat that afternoon.

The promise was faithfully kept, since it seemed expedient to both men
to avoid their friends from The Cracknels, at any rate till they saw how their
Castilian rival was going to be disposed of.

"They are bound to come up this afternoon as usual," Gage observed to

his friend.

"With that Spanish terror after them, shouldn't wonder," said Peckover.
"We're best out of the way."

"Ethel and Dagmar will be poor fun after Ulrica," Gage remarked
gloomily.

"Tell you what it is, my friend," said Peckover. "The sooner you bring
yourself to consider Ulrica a thing of the past the better chance you'll have
of making old bones. Ethel and Dagmar may not be all our fancy painted,
but at least they haven't got a blood-thirsty Spanish nob hanging about them
with traditions and a nasty way of talking polite flummery with a revolver
playfully pointed at the vital parts of your anatomy all the time. You won't
have a ducal freak poking his long nose in there."

"Well, we had better go down, have a fling with the second quality
beauties and then clear out of the place till things cool down," said Gage
with the air of a man who has made up his mind.

Accordingly, after an early luncheon, they went down to the Moat, and
flirted so recklessly with the not unduly obdurate young ladies, that Lady
Agatha was induced to dismiss from her mind a grand plan she had been
formulating for the recapture of John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook, and even went
so far as to canvass the respective claims of pink and apple-green in
connexion with the general scheme of colour for a double bevy of
bridesmaids.

It was late, as late for safety as they could make it, when Gage and
Peckover returned home, discussing plans for a sudden flight next morning.

"Lady Ormstork called?" Gage asked Bisgood carelessly, as he turned

into the smoking-room for a cigarette before going up to dress.

"Yes, my lord. And Miss Buffkin."

"You gave her ladyship my message?"

"Yes, m'lord."

"Did she say anything?"

"Her ladyship said she would wait, my lord, as she had something very
important to tell your lordship."

"Ah," Gage said knowingly. "Did she wait long?"

"Her ladyship and Miss Buffkin are in the drawing-room, my lord."

The cigarette fell from Gage's parted lips, thrust out by a profane charge
which exploded behind it.

"In the——" he turned helplessly to Peckover.

"Percival, old man, they're waiting for us," he gasped.

"Anybody else?" Peckover inquired of Bisgood, with a vision of a pair

of terrific eyes backed by a bald head and set off in front by a long nose and
a gleaming revolver barrel.

"No one else, sir," Bisgood answered with as much surprise as that
functionary ever permitted himself.
 "Better scoot, eh?" suggested Peckover in a panic-stricken whisper, as
the butler left them.

"No. Let's go and hear what the old bird has to say," Gage replied, after a
few moment's hesitation. "If any one is equal to tackling that Spanish
nuisance she's the person. Let's go and hear how she takes it."

CHAPTER XXXIII

Lady Ormstork received them with pleasure tinged with just a shade of
vexation. "We were so disappointed at not finding you at home to-day of all
days," she exclaimed. "We heard this morning of an absurd
misunderstanding which we were anxious to set right without delay. And
we have been waiting nearly four hours."

"You've had tea?" Gage suggested, somewhat beside the point.

"Oh, yes, thank you," Miss Buffkin assured him.

"We heard casually," pursued Lady Ormstork, "that you had gone to call
at the Moat, and naturally expected you would be back soon. But no
doubt,"—this with a world of spiteful significance—"Lady Agatha
Hemyock made a point of keeping you there as long as she could. I know
her."

"Of course," said Gage gallantly, ignoring the suggestion, "if we had
known you were waiting we should have been back long ago."

"Not if Lady Agatha knew it," was the tart reply. "But never mind about
that hateful woman. I have waited to see you on a more important subject."