The little man drew himself up, to look as majestic as possible, before he turned to stare at the bell-boy. “You say this caller is for my wife? Well, I’ll go and entertain him, until she comes in.”
Without another word, Mr. Alexander started off, but Dodo felt it would surely create a divorce in her family if her father was permitted to interview Mr. Alveston alone—perhaps he would tell him he was holding up a private touring party, and then ask him to get out of the way. It was well known that Mr. Alexander stood on little ceremony and lost no time in speaking bluntly to people who caused him any annoyance. Therefore it happened that Dodo got her two girl-friends to hurry with her at the heels of her father. All four approached the caller about the same time.
Algernon Alveston sprang up from the great leather chair, in which he had been quite lost, and gave his coat and vest a nervous yank to straighten out any possible creases. Then he flicked off an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve, and “hem-hem-ed” several times, before he was ready to welcome Dodo and her friends.
Dodo stood still, expecting Algy to join her, then she would prevent her father from taking a high hand in the addition of the young man to the touring party.
Algernon’s spirit was willing to fulfill Dodo’s wishes, but his head was weak. As he nervously started to greet Dodo and be introduced to her father and the two handsome girls beside her, his extremely pointed-toed shoe caught in the long fringe of the Turkish rug. Presto! away went the dapper youth, as though he was performing a fancy dance for the benefit of his audience. In fact, his body seemed to be suspended above the floor in a horizontal position instead of being upright.
Even so, he might have eventually balanced himself, in order to gain a vertical position, as man was meant to be, had it not been for his thick, heavy walking-stick. As he went two-stepping over the carpet, the cane struck the table legs and came back like a boomerang. In another moment it had managed to get between his weak knees, and in another moment Algy was measuring his full length upon the floor directly in front of little Mr. Alexander.
It was all done in so short a time that the girls had not had leisure to catch their breaths, and Mr. Alexander was not provided with any other exclamation than his favorite one, which always came from him like a blast from a small furnace.
“By the Great Horned Spoon! What’cha floppin’ in front o’ me for? I ain’t no royal personage waitin’ to have my subjecks kiss my shoe, like-as-how you Britons do, when you got a favor to ask. Now, git up, and behave like a real man.” With this advice, Mr. Alexander assisted Algy by kicking the troublesome cane out of the way.
“Ah,—I beg pawdin; aw, I neveh thought of saluting you, Mr. Alexandeh. It was owing to a trifling catch of my boot on the rug,” explained Algy, rising awkwardly to his feet, and groping about for his beloved monocle. So nervous was he, that he adjusted the eye-glass and never realized that the fall had loosened and lost the glass. He wore the fine gold-wire rim as though the glass was there.
“Yeh, I noticed the triflin’ trip,” smiled Mr. Alexander.