Mrs. Agatha, gathering beans and aided by the Viscount's two valets, smiled and dimpled on each in turn while the Sergeant, busied in an adjacent corner with a ladder, cursed softly but with deep and sustained heartiness.
Mrs. Agatha's basket was three parts full and Sergeant Zebedee, having pretty well exhausted the English and French tongues, was vituperating grimly in Low Dutch, when a bell jangled distantly, a faint but determined summons, and immediately after, the Viscount's voice was heard near at hand and imperative:
"Arthur! Charles! Where a plague are the prepasterous dags! Oho, Charles! Arthur!"
The two valets, galvanised to action exceeding swift, started, saluted Mrs. Agatha and betook themselves within doors at commendable speed, and the Sergeant, having at last juggled his ladder into position, vituperated them out of sight and was in the act of mounting when he was aware of Mrs. Agatha at his elbow.
"'Tis surely a lovely day, Sergeant!" said she demurely.
"Is it so, mam?"
"Well, isn't it?"
"Why mam, I ain't had doo time to notice same, d'ye see. But, since you ax me I say no, mam, 'tis a dam—no, a cur—no, a plaguy hot day." Saying which, the Sergeant rolled snowy shirt-sleeve a little higher above a remarkably hairy and muscular arm and mounted one rung of the ladder.
"The house do be very—gay these days, Sergeant."
"O mam! And why?"