At twenty-four minutes to three the baron flung out the last damning phrase (with the appropriate splendid gesture) at his image in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece.

Then he turned to beam triumphantly on his little charge.

The easy chair was empty; the prince had gone.
With language far less sonorous, but more staccato, the baron bounced to the window, just in time to see his little charge disappear swiftly over the edge of the sea-wall fifty yards away.

Unfortunately the baron wore his hair too short to be able to tear handfuls of it from his head, or he would have bereft himself of a handful or two.

But everything that language could do to ease him, language did.