Tregarvon laughed, and the stresses came off.
“Luckily, I have acquired Uncle William, or, perhaps I should say, he has acquired me, since I wrote you, and you won’t starve, whatever happens to Merkley. Find your way up-stairs and take possession, while I tell the old uncle what he is up against in the way of supper-getting. You’ll find a bath, with ice-cold mountain spring water—my one luxury—at the end of the upper corridor.”
Considering his resources, which were few and strictly limited, Uncle William shed a lustre all his own upon the dinner for two, which was served in the makeshift dining-room as soon as Carfax came down.
“I’m sure you needn’t find fault with your table,” was the guest’s comment, when the snowy biscuits and the egg-bread, the fried chicken and the riced potatoes had passed in review. “I only wish I could induce an Uncle William to adopt me.”
Thus the master; but the London-bred man was not faring so well. It was Uncle William’s effort to orient the valet—an effort vocalizing itself through the screened windows of Tregarvon’s dining-room—that reopened the question of the practicabilities.
“Is you-all dat gemman’s white niggah?” was the blunt demand, made when Merkley, dinner-inclined, ventured into the sacred precincts of Uncle William’s detached cook-house.
“H-I am Mr. Carfax’s man, and h-I’ll trouble you to serve my dinner,” was the lofty reply, returned in Merkley’s best tone of aloofness.
“I’s askin’ ef you is dat gemman’s white niggah!”—scornfully. “Ef you is, you jes’ sots youse’f down on dat door-step an’ waits, same as any turrer niggah. When de quality folks gets t’rough, an’ I gets t’rough, den you kin have what’s lef’.”
Carfax waved a shapely hand toward the open window.
“The irrepressible conflict has begun,” he remarked. “What do you do in such cases in—er—Coalville?”