“Well, Tom, my boy,” said the old man, feebly, and with a weak smile upon his closely shaven face, “I—I—I ought to be.”
“Then do, for goodness’ sake, take your position. It hurts me, dad, it does indeed, to see you humbled so before the servants. I’ll pay proper respect to her ladyship, and support her in everything that’s just, but when it comes to my old father being made the laughing-stock of every body in the house, I—I—there, damme, sir, I rebel against it.”
As Tom seized the bell again, and dragged at it savagely, the old man seemed deeply moved. He tried to speak, but no words would come, and rising hastily he limped to the window, and stood looking out with blurred eyes, trying to master his emotion.
“Thank you, Tom,” he said, speaking as he looked out of the window. “But after the doctor’s last visit her ladyship told all the servants—Todd’s very particular, you know.”
Tom said something about Doctor Todd that sounded condemnatory.
“Yes, my dear boy,” said the earl, “but—”
Just then the door opened, and a ponderous-looking butler, carefully dressed, with his hair brushed up into a brutus on the top of his head, and every bristle closely scraped from a fat double-chin which reposed in folds over his stiff white cravat, slowly entered the room.
“Why the devil isn’t this bell answered, Robbins?” cried Tom.
“Very sorry, my lord, but I thought—”
“Confound you! how dare you think? You thought my father rang, and that you might be as long as you liked.”