Such a crowded hour of wisdom, wit and historic revelation was an experience that even a dullard was not likely to forget. George Catesby and the Vicar alone were unacquainted with the identity of our guest, and as far as they were concerned the cat was more or less out of the bag.
When we joined the ladies we found that card-tables had been set out. Mrs. Arbuthnot and Coverdale engaged Mrs. Catesby and the King. No one watching the play could fail to be amused by the Circus Proprietor's caustic but good-humoured reflections upon the performance of his partner. The Great Lady bore it all, however, with a stoical humility. To my surprise, she cut in for a second rubber, and her demeanour made it clear to Jodey, who disdained games like "britch" and preferred to watch the royal partie, "that she smelt a rat."
"I expect the show has pretty well given itself away by now," he said in an aside to his host, "but anyhow they have been scored off properly."
The mystery of "scoring off" was still too much for my inadequate mental processes. But I gathered that there was a consensus of opinion among persons of a more vivid intellectual cast that such indeed was the case.
"We sha'n't half pull her leg, I don't think"—in the exuberance of the hour the young fellow relapsed into a semi-lyrical music-hall comedy vein—"about the old circus johnny who drank a health unto his Majesty. I only wish old Alec had been there, that's all."
"A digger, madame, a digger," said the Circus Proprietor in a tone of humorous expostulation, "when you haf not a treek!"
The Great Lady accepted the reproof with Christian meekness.
It was not until hard upon midnight that the departing guest was sped in divers chariots; the Church in the identical "one-hoss shay" of inimitable and pious memory. "So many thanks, Mrs. Arbuthnot, for a really memorable evening," said the Church, with a wave of a somewhat unclerical bowler.
Plutocracy in the little person of Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins had a Daimler of sixty horse power. She gave a lift to a less fortunate sister in the person of Miss Laura Glendinning. The Great Lady and the excellent George, "a good vintage sound but dull," as I have heard him described by a friend and neighbour, had recourse to a medium of travel of twelve horse power only, as became the representatives of our sorely impoverished land-owning class.
"Such a success, my dear!" said the Great Lady, bestowing her parting blessing. "But," in a voice of mystery, "I shall insist upon the whole thing being cleared up."