"I may take it, sir, that you'll blow my brains out if I don't."
"Blow your--Oh, I see! Certainly!" said I, tailing off from astonishment into understanding.
The quiet humour of the man was delightful. I fetched a pistol out of my pocket and added gravely, "William, unless I am, in appearance as well as in fact, a prince's assistant aide-de-camp in half an hour, I'll blow your brains out. Now clear out, while I have a bath!"
"Thankee, sir. It'll be all right now. My lord is, I should say, just of a size with your honour."
William was an artist and fitted me out with the nothing-too-much of exact taste. There were garments by the score that would have made a popinjay of me, but he knew better, and turned a sober young yeoman into a sober young gentlemen, and there's no harder task, as I have frequently observed since.
"Sir," said he at length, stepping back a few paces to con me over, "in any other man I should deplore the obstinacy-excuse my plainness, sir--which declines to wear a wig, but the general result, the tout ensemble, as my lord would put it, is agreeable."
"William," I replied, "you err through ignorance--excuse my plainness, William. The best Wheatman of the Hanyards that ever lived would have burned at the stake rather than wear a wig. I've done most of the other things he would have burned for, but I'll stick by him to this extent that I'll be damned if I'll wear a wig."
I never have, and it is no small measure due to me that the wearing of wigs is being left to lawyers and doctors, who, I understand, find it pays to look old and old-fashioned.
"Quite so, sir! A very proper sentiment," said William, with his eye on the candlestick. "It's family pride that keeps the great families agoing, sir, and they're the backbone of the Constitution, sir!"
After this high sentence, as I was ready to go, he gravely escorted me to the door and bowed me out. I dropped my ear to the keyhole and heard the chink of the guineas. William clearly had a very pretty appreciation of the best means of keeping himself agoing. A suaver, defter rascal I have never set eyes on.