“He is too busy even to wish us good morning,” observed Clack. “How coolly he looked over the letter he took from his clerk, as if we were not worth attending to for a moment!”
“Haughty as he is,” said Gibson, “I would sooner bear with his pride than Rowe’s behaviour or Elliot’s.”
“They are young men, Gibson, and Mortimer is old, and we would sooner bear with an old man’s mistakes than a young man’s, be they what they may! Where next? To Elliott’s?”
“Yes, we are sure of being ill-treated there; so the sooner it is over the better.”
As they approached Mr. Elliott’s house, they perceived that gentleman mounted on his favourite hunter, and in the act of leaving his own door. He was too much occupied with his own affairs to see them coming, for the most important part of his morning’s business was setting off for his ride; and he had eyes for little else while he was admiring the polish of his boots, adjusting his collar, settling the skirts of his coat, and patting his horse’s neck. Clack was not the man for ceremony; he came straight up before the horse, and laid his hand on the handsome new rein, saying, “By your leave, sir—”
“Hands off,” cried Elliott, giving him a cut across the knuckles with his riding whip. “How dare you stop me? How dare you handle my rein with your greasy fingers?”
“How would you get such a rein, I wonder, sir, if we did not grease our fingers in your service?” said Clack, indignantly.
“I’m in a hurry,” said Elliott; “you can speak to the people within, if you want any thing.”
“We will not detain you, sir,” said Taylor, who was now spokesman, “but nobody but yourself can answer our question.” And he told the story in a few words, and put the petition into the gentleman’s hands.
Elliott glanced his eye over it as well as the restlessness of his horse would permit, and then struck it contemptuously with his riding-whip into the mud, swore that that was the proper place for such a piece of insolence, rode up against the men, and pranced down the street without bestowing another look or word upon them.