About noon the day following, on board the steam-yacht of the Countess of Menai, Cecil was very much astonished to see Mr. Romfrey descending into a boat hard by, from Grancey Lespel’s hired cutter. Steam was up, and the countess was off for a cruise in the Channel, as it was not a race-day, but seeing Mr. Romfrey’s hand raised, she spoke to Cecil, and immediately gave orders to wait for the boat. This lady was a fervent admirer of the knightly gentleman, and had reason to like him, for he had once been her champion. Mr. Romfrey mounted the steps, received her greeting, and beckoned to Cecil. He carried a gold-headed horsewhip under his arm. Lady Menai would gladly have persuaded him to be one of her company for the day’s voyage, but he said he had business in Bevisham, and moving aside with Cecil, put the question to him abruptly: “What were the words used by Shrapnel?”
“The identical words?” Captain Baskelett asked. He could have tripped out the words with the fluency of ancient historians relating what great kings, ambassadors, or Generals may well have uttered on State occasions, but if you want the identical words, who is to remember them the day after they have been delivered? He said:
“Well, as for the identical words, I really, and I was tolerably excited, sir, and upon my honour, the identical words are rather difficult to....” He glanced at the horsewhip, and pricked by the sight of it to proceed, thought it good to soften the matter if possible. “I don’t quite recollect... I wrote off to you rather hastily. I think he said—but Palmet was there.”
“Shrapnel spoke the words before Lord Palmet?” said Mr. Romfrey austerely.
Captain Baskelett summoned Palmet to come near, and inquired of him what he had heard Shrapnel say, suggesting: “He spoke of a handsome woman for a housekeeper, and all the world knew her character?”
Mr. Romfrey cleared his throat.
“Or knew she had no character,” Cecil pursued in a fit of gratified spleen, in scorn of the woman. “Don’t you recollect his accent in pronouncing housekeeper?”
The menacing thunder sounded from Mr. Romfrey. He was patient in appearance, and waited for Cecil’s witness to corroborate the evidence.
It happened (and here we are in one of the circles of small things producing great consequences, which have inspired diminutive philosophers with ironical visions of history and the littleness of man), it happened that Lord Palmet, the humanest of young aristocrats, well-disposed toward the entire world, especially to women, also to men in any way related to pretty women, had just lit a cigar, and it was a cigar that he had been recommended to try the flavour of; and though he, having his wits about him, was fully aware that shipboard is no good place for a trial of the delicacy of tobacco in the leaf, he had begun puffing and sniffing in a critical spirit, and scarcely knew for the moment what to decide as to this particular cigar. He remembered, however, Mr. Romfrey’s objection to tobacco. Imagining that he saw the expression of a profound distaste in that gentleman’s more than usually serious face, he hesitated between casting the cigar into the water and retaining it. He decided upon the latter course, and held the cigar behind his back, bowing to Mr. Romfrey at about a couple of yards distance, and saying to Cecil, “Housekeeper; yes, I remember hearing housekeeper. I think so. Housekeeper? yes, oh yes.”
“And handsome housekeepers were doubtful characters,” Captain Baskelett prompted him.