"Ah, little one!" he chuckled, roughly familiar.
"How dare you speak to me!" she protested with such an air of well-bred anger that he drew back, hesitating.
"Excuse me, but—haven't I seen you before?" he stammered.
Hester swept him with a scornful glance. "I thought an American lady was safe from insult in the streets of London," she said, and before he had recovered from his astonishment she had entered a waiting hansom and was gone.
CHAPTER III
PRESENTING HIRAM BAXTER
Hiram Baxter, whose hidden purposes were responsible for Betty's sudden and momentous journey to London, was, in this year of the first flying machine, one of the few really interesting self-made men to be found in New York City, where such sturdy and picturesque types are rapidly disappearing. At fifty-five Baxter was a big, grizzled fellow, with a pair of straight shoulders, a friendly smile and a way of using the English language that was absolutely and delightfully his own.
"This grammar business ain't much of a trick," he would declare, with his slow characteristic drawl. "I could swing it any time I wanted to, but where's the sense o' wearin' high collars and patent leather boots if yer neck and yer feet ain't comf'table in 'em? Suppose I say to you, 'I like them peaches'? You say those peaches. I say, no, them peaches. You say it's wrong. I say it don't make a hang o' difference, it don't hurt you an' it don't hurt me an' it don't hurt the peaches."
Baxter invariably dressed in simple black garments, including a wide-brimmed soft black hat, that gave him in repose, with his ruddy, rugged visage, somewhat the look of an English bishop, as had been more than once remarked by his episcopal friend of Bunchester.
"It ain't because I like it that I wear black," Hiram sometimes explained, "and it ain't because I'm sad. The fact is black's the only safe color fer me if I want a happy home. Why, if I ever let myself go on colored vests an' striped pants, an' fancy neckties, my wife'd start fer a divorce the next mornin'. Yes, sir."