‘Bother!’ exclaimed Mr Barton, the Manager of Tarnpirr, as he finished reading one of his letters on a certain evening.
‘What’s the matter, papa?’ asked his daughter, Daisy, pausing with the teapot in her hand.
‘Oh, nothing much, my dear,’ he replied; only we are to have company. The firm is sending up the 444th cousin of an Irish Earl to learn sheep-farming, and I suppose I’ve got the contract to break him in. That’s all.’
‘I wish your mother could be at home, Daisy,’ he continued. ‘I never did care much about these colonial-experience fellows. They generally give a lot of trouble, especially when they’re well connected. There, read the precious letter for yourself. Pity we couldn’t put him into the hut, instead of making him one of ourselves—eh, Daisy?’
The girl laughed as she read aloud,—
‘Mr Fortescue is highly connected; and as he not only brings introductions from the London office, but [209] ]also possesses an interest in several properties out here, we hope you will do your best to make him comfortable, and to give him that insight into the business that he seems desirous of acquiring at first hand.’
‘Why, daddy!’ she exclaimed, ‘you ought to think yourself honoured—“highly connected,” not merely “well,” remember—by such a charge! As for myself, I am all anxiety to see him.’
‘I don’t think anything of the sort, then, Daisy,’
said her father. ‘And if I could afford to do so, I should like to tell them that I consider it a piece of impertinence on their part to ask me to receive a perfect stranger, knowing how I am situated alone with you, how small the place is, and how roughly we live. But one can’t ride the high horse on a hundred and fifty pounds a year!’
And the Manager of Tarnpirr sighed, and stared thoughtfully into his cup.