“Show him up, Robbins, and we are at home to no one until he is gone.”
The butler bowed, went out, and returned with a tall, rather ungainly man in black, who had something of the appearance of a country carpenter who had taken to preaching. He had a habit of buttoning his black coat up tightly, with the consequence that it made a great many wrinkles round his body, and though he was fully six feet high, you felt that these wrinkles were caused by a kind of contraction, his body being of the nature of concertina bellows, and that you might pull him out to a most amazing extent.
He favoured this conceit, too, by being very cartilaginous in the spine, and softly pressing his hands to his breast, and bowing and undulating gently in different directions to the party assembled in the room.
“Hang him!” muttered Tom, scowling at the new comer. “He looks, as if he were in training for a spiral spring. Who the deuce is he?”
“Tom,” whispered his lordship, “that man makes me feel queer; get some brandy and soda in your room after he has gone.”
Tom favoured his father with a peculiar wink, and the old gentleman felt in his pockets once more, to be sure that he had not flung something out with his handkerchief.
“Mr Irkle, I think?” said her ladyship, blandly.
“Hurkle, my lady,” said the new arrival, bowing. “Hurkle and Slant, Murley Court, Obun.”
“Oban?” said her ladyship; “I thought your place of business was in town.”
“Yes, my lady, Obun, W.C., near top o’ Charn-shery Lane.”