Then he nodded to Harry, and walked into the house, and Harry showed him upstairs to his sitting-room.
I helped the flyman to get the rugs and the small things out of the fly and carried them in, and the Swedish gentleman paid the man.
I noticed all he did, because I said to myself, “This is somebody new. I suppose he’s Mr. Saxon’s new secretary.” And so he was, as he told me afterwards, when he came down and had a pipe in the bar-parlour, Mr. Saxon being busy upstairs writing, having found the manuscript after all in the portmanteau, where he’d put it himself.
“Mr. Saxon seemed a little put out just now,” I said to him.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said. “His liver’s bad. He can’t help it. He must go on at somebody when he’s like that, and I’m getting used to it.”
Presently I went upstairs and knocked at the sitting-room door. When I went in Mr. Saxon was groaning, but writing away for his life.
“If you please, sir,” I said, “I only want to know if you would like any supper.”
“What!” he yelled—really he used to yell sometimes, and that’s the only word for it. “Supper! Good heavens, Mary Jane, do you want me to wake the house up in the middle of the night screaming murder? Look at me now. Do you see how yellow I am? Can’t you see the agony I’m suffering? Supper! Yes, bring me some bread and beetlepaste and a pint of laudanum in a pewter. That’s the supper I want!”
“Lor’, sir,” I said, beginning to be used to him again through old times coming back, “I shouldn’t like you to have that in my house. I hope we’re going to do you good and make you better here. I’m sure we shall do our best.”
He looked up at that, and said, “Thank you, I know you will. You mustn’t mind me if I grumble and growl a bit. I can’t help it. I’m ill, and the least thing makes me irritable.”