Chapter Thirty Two.
Mr Mannering was sitting in his library the next morning, when Mr Bennett was announced. It was not yet twelve o’clock, and the Underham lawyer was generally deep in his work at that hour, so that Mr Mannering met him with a touch of wonder in his cordiality.
“The more welcome because I should as soon have expected Thorpe to receive a visit from the Mayor and Corporation as from you at this time of day. Sit down, pray. My papers are all over the place, but I believe you can find a chair.”
“If I had not known better, I should have said you were still in harness, I own,” said Mr Bennett, looking round upon the familiar signs of business.
“Harness? I sometimes think that for men who have passed the greater part of their lives at work there is no getting out of it. There is a review in the last Quarterly which all the world is talking about, and I can assure you I have not yet found five minutes in which to look at it. The truth is that an unlucky mortal who has neither time, money, nor health, should make up his mind to endure a great deal in this world.”
“What’s that, Charles?” said Mr Robert, coming in with a ruddy glow upon his face. “If you had Stokes for a gardener, you might begin to talk about endurance. Glad to see you, Bennett, this fine fresh morning. All well, I hope?”
“All my household, thank you,” said Mr Bennett, settling himself to his story with great satisfaction. “But we had a sad accident in Thorpe last night. Anthony Miles had been dining with us, and had not left half an hour when back he came, and really it was fortunate that Ada had gone up stairs, or she might have been terribly alarmed to see him dripping from head to foot at that hour of the night. However, the ladies were out of the way, by a stroke of good fortune.”
“Dripping! Had he tumbled into the water?”
“Not at all, not at all. It was a foolish thing to do, but it seems he saw the man fall, and jumped in after him. And then, of course, he came to me for dry clothes.”