“Yes, sir,” responded Jarvis with more of embarrassment than his usually immovable face was wont to show.
“What shall you wear this morning, sir?” inquired the valet, as if anxious to turn the conversation.
“Well, I thought a frock coat and that pair of lavender trousers, which Poole sent in before I left London, and a white waistcoat, would about suit this kind of weather and the style of society hereabouts—these and—of course patent leather shoes.”
It could hardly have happened in so well-trained a servant, and yet surely it was the ghost of a smile which his master saw flitting across Jarvis’ face.
“Eh! What is it, Jarvis?” inquired Mr. Johnstone sharply, “wont these do?”
“Well, sir,” replied the valet with much deference, “most gentlemen wear knickerbockers and lacing boots in the morning when they are going shooting. I thought, perhaps, this velvet jacket and these corduroy trousers, and woollen stockings or gaiters—”
“What, these great coarse things? Why, I was better dressed than that in the ‘Bush!’—still,” noticing a certain relentlessness of aspect creeping over the well-trained servant’s face, “if I must, I must; only it seems to me that there’s a great fondness here for showing one’s legs. I’m sure the way these flunkies aired their white silk stockings and great calves last night before the ladies was hardly decent. By the way, Jarvis, do you know any of the gentlemen staying here? If you do, just fire away and tell me all about them while I’m dressing myself like a—like a navvy!”
“Well, sir, there’s Mr. Granby just walking across the lawn. He is a celebrated barrister, made his reputation as a junior counsel in the Tichborne case; he is likely to get a judgeship out in Bombay soon, they say. The gentleman with him is Mr. Softleigh, editor of the Morning Whisper, a very fashionable paper. That dark-browed swarthy man with the piercing eyes, just lighting his cigar, is Hugo Swinton, the African traveler who had the terrible fight with the great gorilla now in the Zoo. The man waiting for him is Captain Bottomly, of the Guards, who reformed the British square when the Soudanese broke it at—somewhere in Egypt. They say he has six spear wounds in his body.”
“But, I say, Lord! Who is that pompous individual dressed in black—the one with the clean shaven face and port-winey complexion?”
“That, sir, is the Bishop of Oldchester,” replied Jarvis, with a touch of remonstrance in his tone.