"I should like to meet Tuppy," said Alicia calmly, "whilst you are giving him a l—whilst you are rendering him the necessary assistance I will find the ladder."
Tuppy scrambling over the wall met the scrutiny of a pair of grey eyes, and balanced himself with difficulty. When I say he wore his oldest suit, that he had pale green socks and a pair of old slippers, and that owing to his exertions his trouser leg was rucked up to display his sock-suspenders, you will realize that but for his noble breeding Tuppy would have been embarrassed, and would have made a precipitate and undignified retreat.
But Tuppy was above all things self-possessed.
He paused astride the wall.
"Let me introduce Lord Tupping," said the Duke gravely.
Tuppy held on to the wall with one hand and raised his cap with the other.
"Delighted," he said politely.
Alicia averted her eyes from the pale green socks with the scarlet suspenders and addressed him at a tangent.
"Mother will be glad to see Lord Tupping," she said to the Duke. Somehow she did not consider it quite maidenly to speak direct to the suspenders.
"Mother will be glad to see you," repeated the Duke primly.