"Who's that, Huddesley?" asked Teddy affably, indicating by a nod the one to the right. "The respectable-looking party in the knee-breeches, I mean."
"That's Doctor Vardaman's grandhuncle, I believe, sir; 'e's dead."
"No, you don't say? Tst, tst! Too bad! That's the first I've heard of it. When?"
"Habout heighteen-twelve, Hi hunderstand, Mr. Theodore," said Huddesley, paying the tribute of a deferential smile to the other's jocularity.
"Well, well, in the midst of life—the doctor's bearing up tolerably, however, I see. Do you suppose it was a good likeness? What a terrific big red nose the old boy had, didn't he?"
"Hi'm hafraid 'e was haddicted to the bottle, sir," said Huddesley respectfully. "That's what comes of the 'abit hoften."
"Hey? The bottle?"
"Yes, sir—'e took a drop too much, I dessay," said Huddesley without the slightest change of expression. "But a great many gents did in those days compared to what does now, Hi'm told. Heverybody's very temperate now, sir, as you must 'ave noticed. 'E probably began hearly, the hold gent yonder; you might say 'e was brought hup on the bottle."
J. B. eyed the man as Teddy, colouring a little, turned hastily into the parlour; but Huddesley's face was guileless. It was impossible to guess how much the fellow knew or meant to hint, though, indeed, it would have required no great penetration to discover poor Teddy's weakness. The wonder was that Huddesley, the silent, the discreet, should have allowed himself to touch upon the subject at all. It struck J. B. that he was almost too innocently humorous; he wondered if they had spoiled Huddesley, as Colonel Pallinder had predicted, by their unthinking familiarity. Muriel's words recurred uncomfortably to the young man's mind: "You think he's English, but you don't know." "He's no more like a servant at home than our stage-Yankees are like you." But the idea of his being anything else, of his perpetrating an elaborate hoax extending over two months and involving disagreeable manual labour, for no conceivable end, was too preposterous. The thought, hardly more than half-formed, floated across J. B.'s mental horizon, and vanished like a shred of cloud before the wind. Yet his confidence in Huddesley was oddly shaken; he halted, wavering at the fulfilment of a plan he had had in mind but a moment earlier. To say: "Look here, Huddesley, I wish you'd not fill Mr. Johns' glass as often as the rest of us, and never quite full anyhow"—surely that would have been a small matter, and no disloyalty to his friend, rather a kindness. And Huddesley was discreet—yes, that was just it, confound his wooden-faced discretion! All at once it savoured to J. B. of slyness. This uncertain mood was new to him, and while he hesitated in a kind of irritated wonder at his own lack of resolution——
"Beg parding, Mr. Breckinridge, sir, did you want to speak to me?" said Huddesley.