“A very small adventure!” the Duke said, laughing. “I have found something to do for myself, and perhaps I can do it, and perhaps I cannot, but at all events I mean to try. And for once in my life I am going to see how it would be not to be a Duke, with servants puffing off my consequence wherever I go, and toad-eaters agreeing with every ill-considered word I utter, and inn-keepers bowing till their noses touch their knees, and the common world saying nothing but Yes, your Grace! and No, your Grace! and As your Grace pleases! Do you think I shall make a sad botch of it?”
“No, my little one, I think you have a very good understanding, and will manage tolerably well for yourself, but whether you will enjoy the experience of having none to wait on you is another matter,” grinned Gideon. “It won’t harm you, however: you have been kept well-wrapped in lamb’s-wool for too long. I hope you will have very exciting adventures, and slay a great many giants and dragons. I wish I might see you!”
“Oh, no, that would never do!” Gilly said, shaking his head. “You would think me very slow in killing my dragon, and soon fall out of patience with me, and end by pushing me out of the way, and slaying the beast yourself!” He added with a gleam of humour: “And I have a melancholy suspicion that if I had you within call I shouldn’t take the trouble, to think of anything for myself. Oh, I am sure I should wait for you to tell me what I must do next, for that is always what I used to do, and habits, you know, are damnably hard to break! And you are a very peremptory, autocratic, and overbearing fellow, Gideon!”
“Alas! Shall you give me a sharp set-down when you come back from your adventure?”
“Very likely,” said Gilly, putting his empty glass down.
Wragby came into the room to set the dishes on the table. His master told him that he need not wait, and the Duke said, as he took his seat: “How snug this is! Shall I carve this bird? I can, you know! My uncle says a man should know how to carve anything that is set before him. I can shoe a horse, too. Now, why do you suppose he should have thought I must learn such a thing as that? He is the strangest creature! How angry he will be with me when he hears what I have been about! It makes me shake like a blancmanger only to think of it.”
“Amongst the many odd fancies that come into my head, Adolphus,” said his cousin dryly, “is the fancy—I have often been conscious of it!—that in spite of your meekness you do not shake like a blancmanger before my father!”
“No, of course I don’t: he is a great deal too kind to me. But I do not like it when he storms at me, and arguing gives me the headache. I always try to slip away, and being so small and unremarkable I can in general manage to do so,” said the Duke serenely.
Gideon smiled. “Your elusive ways are well known to me. And, by God, it is just what you are doing, now I come to think of it! Don’t try to gammon me with your hints of adventures to be embarked on! You are merely slipping away to rather more purpose than usual. What lying story have you fobbed your devoted servants off with?”
The Duke looked up with rather a guilty twinkle in his eyes. “Well, to tell you the truth, I haven’t,” he confessed. “You cannot slip away unobserved if you tell people you mean to go!”