“I’ve noticed you before now. You’re one of the Barons.”
The injured man felt flattered. Still, he reflected, the driver might have noticed him for any number of unflattering reasons. For a moment he tried to fathom this thought: Was it an evidence that the driver was simple and stupid, that he had interested himself in the people who lived in his neighborhood? He couldn’t reach a satisfactory conclusion.
“It’s awfully good of you to give me a lift like this,” he remarked. He was beginning to feel a little less shaken and strange.
“Oh, I don’t know. You’d do as much for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Carry you around and lift you up on a high seat?” asked Baron incredulously.
The driver threw back his immense head, revealing a bronzed, bull-like throat from which a sound like thunder came. “Well, no, I guess you wouldn’t do that,” he admitted.
The horses, with their ears turned alternately toward the driver and pointed ahead, were brought to a halt in front of the mansion.
“Now you sit up here and hold tight, and try to look as if nothing had happened,” directed the driver. He removed his arm and sprang to the pavement.
“Why?” Baron wanted to know.
“I want to call your old lady out, so she can see you sitting up on the seat.”