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‘Oh, no, he wouldn’t, of course! I do hope he didn’t bite anyone? He isn’t savage, but if he thought anyone was trying to steal him –’
‘Ah, so that was it!’ said his lordship. ‘He was labouring under a delusion, but I daresay that was Walter’s fault, for not making the matter plain to him. My dear boy, don’t look so concerned! Walter likes being bitten by large dogs, and so does Wicken – don’t you, Wicken?’
‘The Animal, my lord,’ replied Wicken, with dignity, ‘did not go so far as to bite Me.’
‘He will, if you keep on calling him the Animal. Well, Felix, how do you do? What brings you here?’
‘I wanted to see you, sir – particularly!’ replied Felix, smiling engagingly up at him.
‘You terrify me!’
Jessamy, who was receiving Walter’s bashful assurance that he had sustained no more than a flesh wound, turned at that, and said rather hotly: ‘I never meant him to plague you, sir! He would come, and I was afraid that if I pushed him off the step he would very likely fall under the wheels of some other vehicle, so I was obliged to pull him into the hack. And that was Frederica’s fault too! If she hadn’t said that you were going to Newmarket tomorrow –’
His irrepressible brother interrupted this speech without ceremony, recommending him to stop being a regular jaw-me-dead. He then raised deceptively angelic eyes to Alverstoke’s face, and said: ‘You promised to take me to see the pneumatic lift, Cousin Alverstoke, and I thought p’raps you had forgotten, and I ought to remind you.’
The Marquis could not remember having given any such promise; and he said so. His youthful admirer dealt summarily with this caveat, saying: ‘Yes, you did, sir! Well, you said We’ll see! and that’s the same thing!’
Jessamy gave him a shake. ‘It’s nothing of the sort! If you don’t hold your tongue, I promise you I’ll give you pepper presently!’
‘Hoo!’ said Felix disrespectfully. ‘Try it, and see if you don’t get one in the bread-basket!’
Observing the angry flush in Jessamy’s cheeks, the Marquis judged it to be prudent to intervene, which he did, by saying: ‘Before you embark on this mill, let us repair to my book-room to partake of refreshment! Wicken, I don’t know what our resources may be, but I rely on you to conjure up suitable refreshment for my guests!’
Jessamy, his flush deepening, said stiffly: ‘You are very good, sir, but we won’t – we won’t trespass upon your hospitality. I came only to fetch Luff, and – and to repay whatever sum it may have cost you to save him from being impounded! We – we need no refreshment!’
‘Yes, we do!’ objected Felix. He directed his seraphic gaze, strongly suggestive of a boy suffering from starvation, upon Wicken, and said politely: ‘If you please!’
‘Felix!’ exploded Jessamy.
But Wicken, not more harde
ned than his master against the wiles of schoolboys, visibly unbent, saying benevolently: ‘To be sure you do, sir! Now, you go into the book-room like a good boy, and you shall have some cakes and lemonade! But mind now! – you mustn’t tease his lordship!’
‘Oh, no!’ responded Felix soulfully. ‘And then will you take me to that foundry, Cousin Alverstoke?’
A choking sound reminded the Marquis of his secretary’s presence in the background. He turned his head, smiling with false sweetness, ‘Ah! If I was not forgetting you, dear boy!’ he said, with gentle malice. ‘Pray come with us into the book-room! I wish to make my – er – wards known to you: Jessamy, and Felix – Mr Trevor!’ He waited while the boys, mindful of their manners, executed two bows before shaking hands with Mr Trevor, and then marshalled the party into his library, saying, as soon as the door was closed: ‘You’ve put yourself in fortune’s way, Felix: Mr Trevor knows far more than I do about pneumatic lifts, and is the very man to take you to the foundry.’
‘You are too flattering, sir!’ said Charles promptly. ‘I am very sure I don’t!’
‘Well, you can’t know less!’ said his lordship, in an undervoice charged with asperity.
‘Yes, but you said you would take me yourself, Cousin Alverstoke!’
Hot with embarrassment, Jessamy besought his brother to stop plaguing his lordship to do what anyone but a gudgeon could see he didn’t want to do. This had the effect of causing Felix to direct a look of heartrending reproach at the Marquis, and to say, in the voice of one mortally wounded: ‘I thought you did want to, sir. You said –’
‘Yes, of course I do!’ interrupted his lordship hastily. ‘But it so happens that I was about to drive to Richmond, to try the paces of my new team. How would you like to go with me there, instead of to the foundry?’
‘Oh, no!’ protested Felix.
This was too much for Jessamy. He exclaimed passionately: ‘You clodpole! You – you stupid little looby! Liefer visit a foundry than sit behind those bang-up grays we s-saw drive up to the house? You must have rats in your garret!’
‘I like machines better than horses,’ said Felix simply.
In the interests of peace, the Marquis intervened yet again. ‘Well, there’s no disputing about taste. If your heart is set on the foundry, the foundry it shall be. Do you want to inspect the grays, Jessamy? Go and talk to my groom about them! You may tell him that I shan’t need them after all today.’
‘Oh! – Thank you, sir! I would like to take a look at them!’ Jessamy said, his scowl vanishing.
With a passing admonition to Felix to keep Luff quiet, he hastened out of the room. By the time he returned, Felix was consuming a hearty meal of plum cake, washed down by copious draughts of lemonade; and eagerly (if sometimes a trifly thickly) holding forth on blast-pipes and safety valves. Mr Trevor, dredging from the depths of his memory such elementary knowledge of the principles governing steam-power as he had happened to acquire during the course of his career, was labouring manfully to keep pace with him; and the Marquis, lounging at his graceful ease in a wing-chair, was observing him with a smile of unholy amusement.
