The quaint customs attaching to the office of Warden, the little bells upon the shoes, the bearing of a model ship, bareheaded, upon Empire Day (a recent innovation and one awkward only to the bald or the blind), though to some they seemed a drawback, to others were but an additional attraction, and the ceremony of waggling in backwards upon all fours into the presence of the Sovereign at Inauguration, had been, with perhaps doubtful wisdom, abolished, to suit the eccentric Radicalism of GHERKIN, who refused to take office under any other condition.
The Accolade, or Ceremonial Stroke, however, heavily administered with a beam of ebony across the back of the Warden Accept, was retained and has often afforded a subject for illustration and archæological research.
Mary Smith learnt even more. She learnt that while decency forbade any saving to be effected on the further £5000 that was an allowance for entertainment and travel, yet custom allowed it to be spent in all forms of hospitality, and that travel might include such social visits as were necessary to the occupant of so high an office. When she learnt this she was but the more confirmed in her determination that Charles Repton who for the moment encumbered the post of Warden, should accept a barony, and that quickly; for she saw the agony of Demaine House already begun. Upon a certain morning in the mid-week of May the last stage of her beneficent action was ready.
In his study on that same morning, Charles Repton, a little weary but with all his action planned and designed, suffered again for a moment that slight dull pain behind the ears, where Caryll’s Ganglia are: he was dazed. He went out and sought his wife, and she was astonished to see as he put to her some simple question on the management of the household, a look of innocence in his eyes. It quickly faded. The pain also departed, and he returned to his study.
Mary Smith sent a note over to Demaine House.
Mary’s note found George Mulross Demaine risen after a lonely lunch and wondering, as he regularly wondered every day, what was going to turn up.
His wonderment had bewilderment in it also. Something was going to turn up he knew ... people were noticing him so. Only last evening there was a savage attack upon him in the Moon, saying that he had torn Hares to pieces with his own reeking hands, and killed a Carted Stag with a blunt knife; while the Capon, with more truth, had pointed out the beauty of the Sir Joshuas in his house, but had erroneously suggested that they were heirlooms in his family.