“Aye—that I do. She be the sweetest lil’ maid in Wiltsheer, she be.”
“Um! And Prudence wants you, hey?”
Alfred grinned. Beneath the crust of an upper-servant’s manner, he caught a glimpse of that rare and refreshing fruit—sympathy. And he was well aware of the butler’s affection for his kinswoman.
“Ah-h-h! When she were a settin’ on my knee las’ night, with her dinky arms roun’ my neck, and her lil’ mouth——”
“That will do,” said Fishpingle, drily. “Obviously, the maid wants you. Now, let me see—your grandfather lived to a ripe old age, didn’t he?”
Alfred nodded eagerly.
“Granfer, he lived to be a hundred an’ two. Yas, he did. An’ he could carry more ale, an’ mead, an’ cider, wi’out showing it, than any man in Nether Applewhite. An’ smokin’ like a chimbley all the time. A most wonnerful man was granfer.”
Fishpingle pursed up his lips, judicially, and his tone became magisterial.
“But your father is dead, Alfred. What killed him?”
Alfred laughed incredulously. Let it not be imputed to him for heartlessness.