To the afternoon train I accompanied him in his new motor-car, finding
him not a little distressed because the chauffeur, a native of the
town, had stoutly--and with some not nice words, I gathered--refused
to wear the smart uniform which his employer had provided.
"I would have shopped the fellow in an instant," he confided to me,
"had it been at any other time. He was most impertinent. But as usual,
here I am at the mercy of circumstances. We couldn't well subject
Brinstead to those loathsome public conveyances."
We waited in the usual throng of the leisured lower-classes who are so
naively pleased at the passage of a train. I found myself picturing
their childish wonder had they guessed the identity of him we were
there to meet. Even as the train appeared Belknap-Jackson made a last
moan of complaint.
"Mrs. Pettengill," he observed dejectedly, "is about the house again
and I fear will be quite well enough to be with us this evening." For
a moment I almost quite disapproved of the fellow. I mean to say, he
was vogue and all that, and no doubt had been wretchedly mistreated,
but after all the Mixer was not one to be wished ill to.
A moment later I was contrasting the quiet arrival of his lordship
with the clamour and confusion that had marked the advent among us of
the Honourable George.
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