“He talks of buyin’ this property,” communed the Honorable Billy, who was thirty–five and had never earned a penny in his life. “Can’t be ten years older than me, though he looks sixty, bein’ podgy. Now, why can’t I have a stroke of luck an’ rake in a stack? Then I might have a cut–in for the giddy widow.”
Evelyn’s trim figure emerged from a tree–shrouded path. She walked with a lithe elegance that pleased Mr. Thring’s sporting eye.
“Or marry a girl like that,” he added. The wild improbability of ever achieving any part of this fascinating programme brought a petulant frown to his handsome, vacuous face.
He strode up to one of the gardeners, a red–whiskered Caledonian, stern and wild.
“Where the devil is everybody?” he yawned. “No shootin’, no yachtin’, not a soul in the billiard–room—where’s the bloomin’ crowd?”
The dour Scot looked at him pityingly.
“Aiblins some are i’ bed,” he said, “an’ there’s ithers wha ocht to be i’ bed.”
“Bully for you, Rob Roy,” cried Thring, who never objected to being scored off. “Aiblins some people are cuttin’ grass wha ocht to be under it, because they don’t know they’re alive, eh what?”
“Man, but ye’re shairp the day,” retorted the gardener. “Whiles I’m thinkin’ there’s a guid pig–jobber lost in you, Maister Thring.”
“Pig–jobber, you cateran! Why pigs?”