“Humph! yes,” said the old man; “but I’m getting tired of sitting here. I want to go back home. How much longer is this tomfoolery going to last?”
“Can’t say, sir. Why don’t you go on to the lawn and have a chat?”
“Pah! Do I look like a man who could do that sort of thing?”
“Can’t say you do,” replied Chumbley, cheerfully. “Well, I’m going to look for Hilton!” and, stepping out of the pagoda, he went across the lawn, with his hands deep down in his pockets.
“Now, let’s see,” he said to himself, as he strolled lazily on, “where would that chap be likely to have stuck himself up for a quiet smoke?
“Seems to have had a tiff with beauty to-night. P’r’aps she has pitched him as she has other people before, present company not excepted. All the more likely for him to have gone off for a quiet smoke—Now where would he go?”
There was a pause here, as if for someone else to answer, but as no one did—
“Down by the river,” he said—“safe.” Chumbley thrust his hands lower down into his pockets, and as if led by fate, he followed slowly almost the very track taken by Hilton so short a time before.
Finding that portion of the extensive grounds quite solitary, Chumbley began to hum what was meant for an air, in a peculiar voice more remarkable for noise than tune—due, no doubt, to his having his cigar in his lips, at which he gravely sucked away as if keeping time to the melody he emitted with the smoke.
“Grass too damp to lie down,” he said to himself, “else it would be rather jolly, and I’m precious tired. Not safe though. Old Bolter would vow there was rheumatism and fever in every blade. Why the dickens don’t they put garden seats down here?”