CHAPTER XXXV.
IN WHICH AN ENTIRELY NEW, AND, AS WILL BE SEEN HEREAFTER, A MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER IS INTRODUCED.
The servants, I mean the stable servants, who lived in the mews where Charles did, had a club; and, a night or two after he had seen Mary in the square, he was elected a member of it. The duke's coachman, a wiry, grey, stern-looking, elderly man, waited upon him and informed him of the fact. He said that such a course was very unusual—in fact, without precedent. Men, he said, were seldom elected to the club until they were known to have been in good service for some years; but he (coachman) had the ear of the club pretty much, and had brought him in triumphant. He added that he could see through a brick wall as well as most men, and that when he see a gentleman dressed in a livery, moping and brooding about the mews, he had said to himself that he wanted a little company, such as it was, to cheer him up, and so he had requested the club, &c.; and the club had done as he told them.
"Now this is confoundedly kind of you," said Charles; "but I am not a gentleman; I am a gamekeeper's son."
"I suppose you can read Greek, now, can't you?" said the coachman.
Charles was obliged to confess he could.
"Of course," said the coachman; "all gamekeepers' sons is forced to learn Greek, in order as they may slang the poachers in an unknown tongue. Fiddle-dedee! I know all about it; least-wise, guess. Come along with me; why, I've got sons as old as you. Come along."
"Are they in service?" said Charles, by way of something to say.