He found himself intruding on the privacy of a stout, vulgar-looking man of sixty or thereabouts, whose name was too freely displayed over all his belongings, from a giant portmanteau down to a rug-strap, to leave the least observant fellow-passenger ignorant of his identity. It was the great Sir Gilbert Lawthorn, whose discovery that pickles could be sold three-halfpence a bottle cheaper than the prevailing price, and still be made to yield a profit, had earned him seven hundred thousand pounds and a baronetcy.
This great personage scowled on the inspector who admitted Stuart into his compartment, and then, after a scornful glance at the modest dressing-case, he remarked rudely:
“I generally have a carriage reserved for me, but this time I thought no one would be in the train. Are you going far?”
“I am going to Easterthorpe,” said Alistair, lowering a window.
The pickle-seller gazed at him in displeasure.
“I live there,” he announced, with conscious superiority. “My place is close to the Prince’s. I don’t think I have seen you in the neighbourhood.”
“I am going down to stay with friends,” said Stuart carelessly, as he took up a paper.
“Do your friends know the Prince?” Sir Gilbert inquired, with patronage. “He called on me last week.”
Alistair lowered his paper and looked at the fat baronet over with unfeigned surprise.
“I have not the honour of your acquaintance, sir,” he said deliberately, beginning to read again.