“Suggest something, my dear sir?”—and Mr. Westgate looked him over with narrowed eyelids. “Open your mouth and shut your eyes! Leave it to me and I’ll fix you all right. It’s a matter of national pride with me that all Englishmen should have a good time, and as I’ve been through a good deal with them I’ve learned to minister to their wants. I find they generally want the true thing. So just please consider yourselves my property; and if any one should try to appropriate you please say, ‘Hands off—too late for the market.’ But let’s see,” continued the American with his face of toil, his voice of leisure and his general intention, apparently, of everything; “let’s see: are you going to make something of a stay, Lord Lambeth?”
“Oh dear no,” said the young Englishman; “my cousin was to make this little visit, so I just came with him, at an hour’s notice, for the lark.”
“Is it your first time over here?”
“Oh dear yes.”
“I was obliged to come on some business,” Percy Beaumont explained, “and I brought Lambeth along for company.”
“And you have been here before, sir?”
“Never, never!”
“I thought from your referring to business—” Mr. Westgate threw off.
“Oh you see I’m just acting for some English shareholders by way of legal advice. Some of my friends—well, if the truth must be told,” Mr. Beaumont laughed—“have a grievance against one of your confounded railways, and they’ve asked me to come and judge, if possible, on the spot, what they can hope.”
Mr. Westgate’s amused eyes grew almost tender. “What’s your railroad?” he asked.