That query was so unusual from the man that the porter looked up surprised.
“Don’t look at me as though I was stuffed,” said Sir Charles sharply, “don’t you know what your place is worth?”
The man grumbled a little.
With the most unworthy ferocity, but perhaps the pain must excuse him, Sir Charles bent his head in to the little window in the glass and hissed: “This kind of thing has happened before. Just you bally well sort the papers in front of you and make sure.”
His hands were trembling with constricted rage the porter ran through the bundle, and found a card.
“What did I tell you, you b——y snipe!” darted the now uncontrollable Baronet. Then recovering himself he said with no shame but in a little confusion: “I’ve had enough of this.” He looked at the card: it was an advertisement inviting him to spend a week for eleven guineas in lovely Lucerne, and there was a picture of the Rigi Kulm. He tore the card up savagely, threw it into the waste-paper basket, hurriedly went down the steps of his Club, bolted into the taxi and slammed the door behind him.
The driver had let the engine stop. Sir Charles sat tapping either foot, his eyes alight, and his hands working nervously. The man was working the barrel organ in front of the machine; the piston started once or twice vigorously, then died down again. Sir Charles got out.
“If you can’t make your damn kettle go,” he said,—then he suddenly smiled. “What a good-natured face you have,” he remarked with an abrupt transition of tone. “It’s a brutal thing for men like me with enormous incomes to bully people who have to be out in all weathers, though I must say you taxi-men are a privileged lot! You’ve always got a herd of poor fellows round you, running messages for you and what not. You know,” he went on still more familiarly, “if you didn’t look so jolly good-natured I wouldn’t get into the cab again: but I will now. I will now,” he nodded reassuringly to show there was no ill-feeling, and he climbed again into the taxi, which at last started off upon its journey.
Sir Charles, within that vehicle, preserved for some moments the expression of strong silence which was at least one-half of his fortune. Suddenly that expression broke down; something tickled him hugely. Such a merry look came into his eyes as had perhaps not visited them since he was a child—if then. It occurred to him to look out of the window. The fact that the window was up in no way incommoded him. He butted his head through it and then very cautiously drew it in again.
“That’s dangerous,” he muttered, “might have cut myself.”