“Frock-coats for morning dress and afternoon wear, sir,” he ventured. “The evening cut, as you know, is—”
“Claw-hammer. Swallow-tail, I guess you say here,” Tembarom ended for him, quite without hint of rancor, he was rejoiced to see.
“Yes, sir,” said Pearson.
The ceremony of dressing proved a fearsome thing as it went on. Pearson moved about deftly and essayed to do things for the new Mr. Temple Barholm which the new Mr. Temple Barholm had never heard of a man not doing for himself. He reached for things Pearson was about to hand to him or hold for him. He unceremoniously achieved services for himself which it was part of Pearson's manifest duty to perform. They got into each other's way; there was even danger sometimes of their seeming to snatch things from each other, to Pearson's unbounded horror. Mr. Temple Barholm did not express any irritation whatsoever misunderstandings took place, but he held his mouth rather close-shut, and Pearson, not aware that he did this as a precaution against open grinning or shouts of laughter as he found himself unable to adjust himself to his attendant's movements, thought it possible that he was secretly annoyed and regarded the whole matter with disfavor. But when the dressing was at an end and he stood ready to go down in all his innocent ignoring of speckled tweed and brown necktie, he looked neither flurried nor out of humor, and he asked a question in a voice which was actually friendly. It was a question dealing with an incident which had aroused much interest in the servants' hall as suggesting a touch of mystery.
“Mr. Strangeways came yesterday all right, didn't he?” he inquired.
“Yes, sir,” Pearson answered. “Mr. Hutchinson and his daughter came with him. They call her `Little Ann Hutchinson.' She's a sensible little thing, sir, and she seemed to know exactly what you'd want done to make him comfortable. Mrs. Butterworth put him in the west room, sir, and I valeted him. He was not very well when he came, but he seems better to-day, sir, only he's very anxious to see you.”
“That's all right,” said Tembarom. “You show me his room. I'll go and see him now.”
And being led by Pearson, he went without delay.