"And who is Wolff?" asked his wife.
"Wolff, my dear, is the toad-eater. In the old days every great man kept a toad-eater; sometimes his functions were highly paid—Wolff's are, I fancy. A dish of toads of the largest and most repulsive variety used to be offered one by one to the big man's relatives and guests. A good many would partake of them. It was the toad-eater's office to devour the remainder with apparent gusto."
"Reginald, you're a wretch! and I don't believe a word of it," said Lucy.
Haggard yawned, drained his glass, and they retired to prepare themselves for the journey to Walls End Castle, which was to take place on the morrow.
Lord Pit Town was determined, on this occasion at least, to break through the rule which he had stringently observed since his return to Walls End Castle. For many years no lady had graced the great old house with her presence. It was considerably to Justice Haggard's astonishment that he heard of the invitation to his son and his son's wife. "Hetton won't like it," he muttered to himself, as with the point of his stick he gently titillated the back of one of his favourite black pigs. The animal stood perfectly still, grunting with suppressed delight. "Hetton will be decidedly savage," mused the old gentleman. "I wonder whether Reginald will get something in the will?" pondered his father, his eyes fixed on the black pig's ears. "He's a lucky beggar, Reginald, a very lucky beggar, and Warrender's daughter is more than he deserves." Few fathers think that any woman is more than their son deserves, particularly when that son is an only son, wealthy, and a possible heir to a peerage; but we may take it that Justice Haggard knew pretty well what his son deserved, and that when he considered Georgie "more than his son deserved," Justice Haggard was probably right. If the prodigal really had his deserts he would still be chewing husks with the Mexican swine—husks which the magnificent specimen of the porcine race who was so delightedly submitting to the caresses of the Justice's stick would doubtlessly have indignantly rejected. "I wonder why," continued the meditating Justice, "Hetton don't marry?" Perhaps Mademoiselle Zizine, of the French theatre, was the reason—who knows? Hetton didn't go into society, not that society wouldn't have been very glad to receive Lord Hetton, being Lord Hetton, even if he had been a Siamese twin or a Spotted Boy, which he wasn't. But Lord Hetton found that society cost money, and only placed an additional barrier between him and the object of his ambition—the blue ribbon of the turf. Hence when Lord Hetton sought distraction from race meetings and Tattersall's, he found it in the society of Mademoiselle Zizine and her like.
Evidently the question of why Hetton didn't marry perplexed the Justice; he paused in his attentions to the pig; the animal, who was black but comely, missing the accustomed caress, gave a little snort of impatience. "Bother Hetton!" said the Justice, administering a sudden and unexpected prod to that tender but irritable skin. The injured and indignant animal gave vent to a succession of eldritch screams. The callous Justice passed on to the next stye, immersed in thought.
Great were the preparations at Walls End Castle, and greater still the astonishment of the old housekeeper when she heard that the winter house party was to be graced with the presence of ladies. Not that what were termed the state apartments were in any way disturbed. The old show rooms were left to the mice and ghosts, but the more modern suites were all to be occupied. My lady's own rooms had been allotted to Haggard and his wife. The rather Spartan simplicity of the late Lady Pit Town had made her own rooms sombre, if not grim. It had been a labour of love with the old lord to change all this. The æsthetic gentleman Messrs. Spick and Span, the great upholsterers, had sent down, had been severely snubbed by Dr. Wolff; the upholsterer had submitted elaborate coloured pictures of his idea, his firm's idea, of what a suite of rooms should be. Part of that idea was sham bric-à-brac, the rest was carte blanche to Messrs. Spick and Span. "We should like," said that well-dressed and self-satisfied individual, "to turn out a job worthy of our house's reputation and that of his lordship. We should suggest that the boudoir be hung with Japanese embroideries; of course, there would be an Aubusson carpet, and we should cover the whole flooring"—which Mr. Veneer contemptuously indicated with his umbrella—"with our patent parquet; probably a mediæval pattern would be the most suitable. We should restore the ceiling and liven up the mouldings with a free use of gold; in fact, my advice in the matter is, that his lordship should place himself entirely in our hands. Of course, money's no object. His lordship cannot do better than to rely upon the taste of our Mr. Spick."
"I do not think it shall be so, my friend," Wolff had replied. "You will put fresh and pretty papers on the walls. Your hangings must be of chintz, of pretty chintz, and you will put a cheerful carpet on the floor. As for furniture, there is plenty of that here, but the chairs and the sofas you shall provide; one thing only you shall remember—they shall be comfortable. His lordship will sit in every chair; if it is not comfortable it will go back. As for the ceiling you shall not touch him."
Messrs. Spick and Span's representative was wounded in his tenderest point, but his firm carried out the order to the letter. The old lord had sat in each chair and was satisfied. The ceiling, which represented the triumph of Venus, by Verrio, was left untouched. If we were permitted to penetrate the secret mysteries of the bedchamber, we should make the reader's mouth water by telling of the toilet table, which was stamped "Riesener," and bore the mark, "Meubles de la reine." We should tell of the ormolu mounts of the little table, and how it really once belonged to Marie Antoinette. All the decorative furniture of this suite of rooms had been carefully selected by the old lord from the vast accumulation of such things that Walls End Castle contained. For several weeks he and Dr. Wolff had pottered about the set of rooms that were to be graced by Georgie's presence. When, to Wolff's astonishment, the priceless Meissonier, "The Gray Musketeer," was selected as the one picture to adorn the boudoir, he attempted a remonstrance.
"Nothing can be too good for her, Wolff," said the earl, as he smiled upon the picture.