Gringo was getting mad. “You high-toned dogs palaver too much. See the teeth in those jaws,” and he opened his gaping cavern of a mouth at Sir Walter Scott. “They’re my cards. I’m going in—I want to see master’s girl.”
Walter Scott stepped back with a sneer on his handsome face, and was going for a walk in a somewhat stiff-legged fashion, when Miss Stanna called, “Come in, Walter darling.”
Walter darling was in a rage, but still he remembered his manners, and stood back for Gringo and me to follow Miss Stanna into the library.
CHAPTER IX
I MEET GRINGO AGAIN
It was a very pleasant room. Old Mrs. Resterton hadn’t expected callers, so the fire was very low in order to save the coal. However, she was poking it, and it soon would be cheerful. There were plenty of books in long, low cases, and a nice old-rose carpet on the floor, and big easy chairs. And standing before one of those chairs was a very remarkable-looking man.
He did look like Napoleon. He was proud, and quiet and determined-looking, and his hair lay in a little wave on his forehead, just the way Napoleon’s does in his pictures. When he spoke, his voice was beautiful—low and resonant like a bell. My! my! what a look he had—like a man that had seen everything. I saw that no matter what his position in life had been, he was enormously clever.
Miss Stanna was very cool, and yet gracious with him, but her grandmother, worldly old stager as she was, could not conceal her satisfaction at his unexpected visit.
She gushed when she saw my master. “Oh! Rudolph, how opportune. I have been hoping you would drop in. How are you, and how is dear Clossie?”