"Sir!" snapped Mr. Van Pycke.
Bellows' face lighted with the joy of a great discovery. "I have it, sir. If you will wait out here just a few moments, sir, I can have trousers, shoes, and stockings. Have you a notion, sir, as to the size?" He stood back and looked Mr. Van Pycke over carefully. "I think I can fix it, sir."
He departed hastily, closing the drawing-room door behind him. Bosworth sat down upon a frail Italian chair and watched his father unbutton his shoes while standing on one foot, propped against the wall.
"Dad, he's going to sandbag one of the guests and take off his clothes," the young man said, smiling broadly. His eyes were quite steady now, and merry.
"Why are you here, sir?" demanded his father, irrelevantly, suddenly remembering that Bosworth had not mentioned his intention to stop at Mrs. Scoville's.
The young man was spared the expediency of a reply by the return of Bellows, with a pair of trousers over his arm, shoes and stockings in his hand. He seemed in some haste to close the drawing-room door behind him.
"You can change in the room at the head of the stairs, sir."
Mr. Van Pycke, in his stocking feet, preceded the footman up the stairs, treading very tenderly, as if in mortal fear of tacks.
Buzzy twirled his thumbs impatiently. He yawned time and again, and more than once cast his glance in the direction of his coat and hat. Never before, in any house, had he been required to sit in a reception hall until the hostess was ready to receive him elsewhere. He could not understand it. Above all places, Mrs. Scoville's, where the freedom of the house was usually extended to all who in friendship came.
From behind closed doors—distant closed doors, by the way—came the sound of laughter and joyous conversation, faintly audible to the young man in the hall.