Apparently guileless, my brother-in-law's protasis was nothing less than a deliberate direction to me to postpone Mr. Dunkelsbaum's arrival at Brooch until Merry Down was no longer in the market.
My heart began to beat violently....
Berry was speaking again.
"Wait half a minute, and we'll change over." He turned to Adèle. "Will you sit in front with Boy?"
As the change was being made, Mr. Dunkelsbaum advanced.
I have seldom set eyes upon a less prepossessing man. To liken him to a vicious over-fed pug is more than charitable. Smug, purse-proud and evil, his bloated countenance was most suggestive. There was no pity about the coarse mouth, which he had twisted into a smile, two deep sneer lines cut into the unwholesome pallor of his cheeks, from under drooping lids two beady eyes shifted their keen appraising glance from me to Berry and, for a short second, to Adèle. There was about him not a single redeeming feature, and for the brute's pompous carriage alone I could have kicked him heartily.
The clothes were like unto the man.
From beneath a silk-faced overcoat, which he wore unbuttoned, the rich contour of a white waistcoat thrust its outrageous way, spurning the decent shelter of a black tail-coat and making the thick striped legs look shorter than ever. A diamond pin winked in the satin tie, and a black bowler hat and patent-leather boots mercifully covered, the one his crown, and the others his short fat feet.
My gentleman raised his hat and removed a cigar from his mouth before speaking in a thick voice and with a strong foreign accent.
"My segretary 'as tol' you of my agsident, yes. I voz much oblige' vor a lif' to Brrrrooch. These gattle"—contemptuously he pointed to the waggoner and his great beasts, to whose common sagacity he owed his life—"should not allowed be on der roats, no. Ach, so. It voz all wrong."