“Here, Syd, fetch that scoundrel here.”
The door was flung open, the lad leaped out and went at the waiter like a dog, seizing him by the collar, spinning him round, and racing him protesting the while down the steps and over the rough pavement to the coach door.
“You insolent scoundrel, why didn’t you come when I called?” said Captain Belton, from inside the fusty coach.
“Don’t I tell you we’re full!” cried the waiter; “and don’t you come putting—”
“Silence, sir! how dare you!” cried the captain in his fiercest tones. “How do you know that we want to stay in your dirty hotel? Take my card up to Captain Dashleigh, and say I am waiting.”
The man glanced at the card, turned, and ran with alacrity into the house.
“That’s just the sort of fellow I should like to set Strake at, Syd, with his mates and the cat. A flogging would do him good.”
The next minute the waiter was back at the coach door with Captain Dashleigh’s compliments, delivered in the most servile tones, and would Captain Belton step up?
“Get down my valise and pay the coachman,” said the captain. “We shall sleep here to-night, though you are full.”
They were shown into a room where a little, dandified man in full uniform was walking up and down, evidently dictating to his secretary, who was busily writing.