Shelton restrained a smile.
“There!” said the old man, smoothing out a piece of paper shakily, “that's Sir George!” and his withered finger-tips trembled on the middle of the page: 'Joshua Creed, in my service five years as butler, during which time I have found him all that a servant should be.' And this 'ere'—he fumbled with another—“this 'ere 's Lady Glengow: 'Joshua Creed—' I thought I'd like you to read 'em since you've been so kind.”
“Will you have a pipe?”
“Thank ye, sir,” replied the aged butler, filling his clay from Shelton's pouch; then, taking a front tooth between his finger and his thumb, he began to feel it tenderly, working it to and fro with a sort of melancholy pride.
“My teeth's a-comin' out,” he said; “but I enjoys pretty good health for a man of my age.”
“How old is that?”
“Seventy-two! Barrin' my cough, and my rupture, and this 'ere affliction”—he passed his hand over his face—“I 've nothing to complain of; everybody has somethink, it seems. I'm a wonder for my age, I think.”
Shelton, for all his pity, would have given much to laugh.
“Seventy-two!” he said; “yes, a great age. You remember the country when it was very different to what it is now?”
“Ah!” said the old butler, “there was gentry then; I remember them drivin' down to Newmarket (my native place, sir) with their own horses. There was n't so much o' these here middle classes then. There was more, too, what you might call the milk o' human kindness in people then—none o' them amalgamated stores, every man keepin' his own little shop; not so eager to cut his neighbour's throat, as you might say. And then look at the price of bread! O dear! why, it is n't a quarter what it was!”