"O fie, sir, fie! Here's you pasitively wasting all your natural advantages,—shape, stature, habit o' bady all thrown away—I always admired your curst, high, stand-and-deliver air—even as a child, and here's you living and clothing yourself like——"
He paused as the Sergeant re-entered, who, spreading out the three suits upon the table with a flourish, stood at attention.
"I knew it—I feared so!" murmured the Viscount, turning over the garments. He sighed over them, he groaned, he nearly wept. "Take 'em away—away, Zeb," he faltered at last, "hide 'em from the eye o' day, lose 'em, a Gad's name, Zeb—burn 'em!"
"Burn 'em, sir?" repeated the Sergeant, folding up the despised garments with painful care, "axing your pardon, m'lord, same being his honour's I'd rather——"
"Next week, nunky, you shall ride to town with me and acquire some real clothes."
The Major stroked his chin and surveyed the Sergeant's wooden expression!
"Egad, Tom," said he, "I think I will!"
Glancing from the window, the Major beheld a train of heavily-laden pack-horses approaching, up the drive.
"Why, what's all this?" he exclaimed.
"That?" answered the Viscount yawning, "merely a few of my clothes, sir, and trifling oddments——"