Pangbutt burst into a horrible fit of loud laughter, and shook his head, and laughed and laughed again.
He stopped and looked at the old servant; and again he burst into his horrible laugh.
“Gord!” said the old butler.
The old man, looking down upon the huddled figure that laughed, saw that his wits had snapped.
CHAPTER XC
Wherein Hereditary Greatness fails to Glitter Hidalgic
In Mr. Sim Crittenden, the music-hall star, the adored comedian of London’s masses, what remained of the old prize-fighting ostler of Burford was severely disguised under the pose of the baritone god—the maker of the horse-laugh of the multitude. But to the credit of the tailor, be it said, it was impossible to cover all sign of the huge shoulders, the great chest; and the gloves he wore only exaggerated the weight of the hard-hitting hands.
Mr. Sim Crittenden, arrayed in an elaborately loud attempt to be strikingly quiet in hue, and aspiring to the latest severity of mode, to catch as it were the careful carelessness of the young blood at the seaside, sat on a bench on Hampstead Heath beside the light and befrilled figure of Miss Polly Whiffles, temporarily Ffolliott; she drew patterns of embarrassment in the gravel whilst he held her in earnest conversation.