“Yessir!”
“Oh, ah! Present my compliments to the Major, and inform him that I shall be with him shortly!”
The boots went off to execute these commands, and Sir Richard, surveying the beauty of the morning with a jaundiced eye, got out of bed.
When the boots came back with a jug of hot water, he found Sir Richard in his shirt and breeches, and reported that the Major was pacing up and down the parlour more like a wild beast in a circus than a Christian gentleman.
“You appal me,” said Sir Richard unemotionally. “Just hand me my boots, will you? Alas! Biddle, I never realized your worth until I was bereft of you!”
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“Nothing,” said Sir Richard, inserting his foot into one of the boots, and pulling hard.
Half an hour later he entered the parlour to find his matutinal guest fuming up and down the floor with a large watch in his hand. The Major, whose cheeks were unbecomingly flushed, and whose eyes started quite alarmingly, stabbed at this timepiece with one quivering finger, and said in a suppressed roar: “Forty minutes, sir! Forty minutes since I entered this room!”
“Yes, I have even surprised myself,” said Sir Richard, with maddening nonchalance. “Time was when I could not have achieved this result under an hour, but practice, my dear sir, practice, you know, is everything!”
“An hour!” gobbled the Major. “Practice! Bah, I say! Do you hear me, sir?”