“Yes; I’ve been running up and down outside to make me look as if I’d been a long way. Now, I’ll go upstairs and give the governor his bromide of potassium.”
“But it’s salt and water.”
“Never mind; he’ll think it’s the bromide, and that’s all that’s necessary. I know Mr. Saxon, and I know how to manage him.”
And he did certainly, for the next morning, when I went to take breakfast up to the sitting-room, there was Mr. Saxon looking quite jolly, and he said he’d had the best night’s rest he’d had for a year.
“And if I hadn’t had the bromide,” he said, “I shouldn’t have closed my eyes all night.”
The Swedish gentleman never let a muscle of his face move, but I caught him looking at me, and there was a twinkle in his light blue eyes that said a good deal.
There was no doubt about his understanding Mr. Saxon, and knowing how to manage him.
* * * * *
The next evening Mr. Saxon hadn’t any work to do, and so after dinner he and the Swedish gentleman came and sat in the bar-parlour along with Mr. Wilkins and the company, and he and the Swedish gentleman joined in the conversation, and they both told such wonderful stories that it made our village people open their eyes. Mr. Wilkins generally had all the talk, but he had to sit still because Mr. Saxon didn’t let him get a word in edgeways when he was once fairly started.
Of course he must talk about awful things—things to make your blood curdle—it wouldn’t be him if he didn’t do that; and the stories he told made what hair Mr. Wilkins had on his head stand upright, he being a very nervous man, and believing in ghosts and supernatural things.