BOOK FOUR
THE UNJUST STEWARD
CHAPTER XV
DEPUTATIONS—WITH A DIFFERENCE
Hughie let himself into his chambers in Jermyn Street, and rang the bell of his sitting-room. It was a comfortable bachelor apartment, with sporting trophies on the walls, cavernous arm-chairs round the fireplace, and plenty of pipes dotted about the mantelpiece.
It was eleven o'clock on a fine morning in March, and Hughie had been to Putney to stroke a scratch eight against the Cambridge crew, who had rowed a full trial on the early flood and required a little pacing between bridges.
Presently the sitting-room door opened, and John Alexander Goble presented himself upon the threshold. Since his unregenerate days on board the Orinoco a new and awful respectability had descended upon him, and in his sober menial attire he looked more like a Calvinistic divine than ever. He regarded his employer with some displeasure.
"Your breakfast has been sitting in the fender these twa hours," he observed bitterly.