“So we think,” said Lord Lambeth. “If you would kindly suggest something—”
“Suggest something, my dear sir?” and Mr. Westgate looked at him, narrowing his eyelids. “Open your mouth and shut your eyes! Leave it to me, and I’ll put you through. It’s a matter of national pride with me that all Englishmen should have a good time; and as I have had considerable practice, I have learned to minister to their wants. I find they generally want the right thing. So just please to consider yourselves my property; and if anyone should try to appropriate you, please to say, ‘Hands off; too late for the market.’ But let’s see,” continued the American, in his slow, humorous voice, with a distinctness of utterance which appeared to his visitors to be part of a humorous intention—a strangely leisurely, speculative voice for a man evidently so busy and, as they felt, so professional—“let’s see; are you going to make something of a stay, Lord Lambeth?”
“Oh, dear, no,” said the young Englishman; “my cousin was coming over on some business, so I just came across, at an hour’s notice, for the lark.”
“Is it your first visit to the United States?”
“Oh, dear, yes.”
“I was obliged to come on some business,” said Percy Beaumont, “and I brought Lambeth along.”
“And you have been here before, sir?”
“Never—never.”
“I thought, from your referring to business—” said Mr. Westgate.
“Oh, you see I’m by way of being a barrister,” Percy Beaumont answered. “I know some people that think of bringing a suit against one of your railways, and they asked me to come over and take measures accordingly.”