“Rather!” Williams exclaimed. “I’ve got him I don’t know how many, myself. The last time I did he was pretty well down and out, and the best I could get for him was a chauffeur’s job for a little cuss I happened to know in the brass trade—Braithwaite. Lives out your way somewhere, I think. O’Boyle took it all right; it was chauff or starve!”
“I beg your pardon. Who took what?”
“O’Boyle,” said Williams. “Charlie O’Boyle, the man we’re talking about—the chap that was just conning the cashier yonder. I was telling you he took a job as chauffeur for a family out your way in the suburbs.”
“Yes, I understood,” Mr. Dodge returned, with more gravity than Williams expected as a tribute to this casual narrative. “You said this O’Boyle became a chauffeur to some people named Braithwaite and that you obtained the position for him. I merely wondered—I suppose when you recommended this O’Boyle to Mr. Braithwaite you—ah—you mentioned his name? I mean to say: you introduced O’Boyle as O’Boyle.”
“Well, naturally,” Williams replied, surprised and a little nettled. “Why wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t expect people to take on a man for a family job like that and not tell ’em his name, would I? I don’t see what you——”
“Nothing,” Mr. Dodge said, hurriedly. “Nothing at all. It was a ridiculous question. My mind was wandering to other things, or I shouldn’t have asked it. We’d better get down to business, I suppose.”
But that was something his wandering mind refused to do; nor would it under any consideration or pressure “get down to business” during the rest of that afternoon. He went home early, and, walking from his suburban station in the first twilight of a gray but rainless November day, arrived at his own gate just as the Braithwaites’ closed car drew up at the curb before the next house.
An elderly negro chauffeur climbed down rustily from his seat at the wheel and opened the shining door; Mrs. Braithwaite stepped gracefully down, and, with her lovely saint’s face uplifted above dark furs, she crossed the pavement, entered the low iron gateway, and walked up the wide stone path that led through the lawn to the house. On the opposite side of the street a group of impressed women stopped to stare, grateful for the favouring chance that gave them this glimpse of the great lady.
Mr. Braithwaite descended from the car and followed his wife toward the house. He did not overtake her and walk beside her; but his insignificant legs beneath his overcoat kept his small feet moving in neat short steps a little way behind her.
Meanwhile, the pausing neighbour gazed at them and his open mouth showed how he pondered. It was not upon this strange woman, a little of whose strangeness had so lately been revealed to him, that he pondered most, nor about her that he most profoundly wondered. For, strange as the woman seemed to him, far stranger seemed the little creature pattering so faithfully behind her up the walk.