He strode through the front gate but took his way immediately to the stable in front of which two grooms were currying a restless horse.
"Hello, Simon," said Owen. "My car has broken down up the road here. I wonder if you can help me out."
"I guess so," said the groom, not very cheerfully.
"We got plenty to do today as it is, Mr. Owen, with the weddin' party on an' them gol blamed lions to look after."
"Who talka da lions?" cried a grim voice, and, turning, Owen pretended to see for the first time a short, heavy set man of the gypsy type, seated on a box at the stable door smoking a cigarette and evidently regarding all the world as the object of his personal hate.
"Why, who is that man?" asked Owen of the groom in a tone of condescending interest. "Where have I seen him before?"
"If ye ever saw him before, ye wouldn't want to see him again," declared the groom. "He's Garcia, Miss Sophie's new lion tamer, but we ain't had time to tame him yet. He's wild."
The answer to this taunt was a rush from Garcia, who, uttering an unintelligible roar that might have done credit to one of his lions, sprang towards the groom. The latter took quick refuge behind the horse.
The man's fury made Owen step aside, too, but he looked on with an appreciative smile. As Garcia came back, growling, to his seat on the box, the secretary stepped up to him and held out his hand.
"Is it really you?" he said, the patronage in his voice offsetting the familiarity of his manner.