“He has just lain down, sir; he said he did n't feel quite well, and desired he mightn't be disturbed.”
“He's not too ill to hear a message. Go in and say that Commodore Graham wishes to have one word with him. Do you hear me, sir?”
A flash of the old man's eye and a tighter grasp of his cane—very significant in their way—sent Mr. Raikes on his errand, from which, after a few minutes, he came back, saying, in a low whisper, “He's asleep, sir,—at least I think so; for the bedroom door is locked, and his breathing comes very long.”
“This is about the most barefaced, the most outrageously impudent—” He stopped, checked by the presence of the servant, which he had totally forgotten. “Take my traps back into the hall,—do you hear me?—the hall.”
“If you 'd allow me, sir, to show the yellow rooms upstairs, with the bow window—”
“In the attics, I hope?”
“No, sir,—just over the mistress's own room on the second floor.”
“I 'll save you that trouble, Mr. Raikes; send Corrie here, my coachman,—send him here at once.”
While Mr. Raikes went, or affected to go, towards the stables,—a mission which his dignity secretly scorned,—the Commodore called out after him, “And tell him to give the mare a double feed, and put on the harness again,—do you hear me?—to put the harness on her.”
Mr. Raikes bowed respectfully; but had the Commodore only seen his face, he would have seen a look that said, “What I now do must not be taken as a precedent,—I do it, as the lawyers say, 'without prejudice.'”