"What is the name of the boy in the corner?" she asked.
At this, a round-faced lad of perhaps eighteen sprang forward. The most striking items of his costume were a red neckerchief and a green baize apron and leggings, giving to his appearance a slight flavor of a horse-boy in an illustration to Dickens.
"I, ma'am," he said, with a strong cockney accent, "am the Useful Boy, as they say in the States."
"He's very good at doing boots," said Reed.
"Boots," cried the boy, and kissing his hand he waved it in the air with a gesture we have been accustomed to think of as continental rather than British, "a boot, particularly a riding-boot, is to me—"
"What is your name?" Mrs. Falkener asked, and this time the severity of her manner was unmistakable.
It did not, however, dampen the enthusiasm of the last candidate.
"My name, ma'am," he replied, "is B-r-i-n-d-l-e-b-u-r-y."
"Brindlebury?"
"Pronounced, 'Brinber'—the old Sussex name with which, ma'am, I have no doubt you, as a student of history—"