“Please do.”
And Swinton, drawing out the bit of pasteboard, handed it over to the official.
A servant more active upon his limbs carried it upstairs.
“Nice lady, sir, Mrs Girdwood?” remarked the hall-keeper, by way of “laying pipe” for a perquisite. “Nice fambly all on ’em; ’specially that young lady.”
“Which of them?” asked Swinton, thinking it no harm to strengthen his friendship with the official. “There are two.”
“Well, both on ’em for that matter, sir. They be both wonderful nice creeturs.”
“Ah! true. But you’ve expressed a preference. Now which may I ask, is the one you refer to as specially nice?”
The janitor was puzzled. He did not know which it would be most agreeable to the gentleman to hear praised.
A compromise suggested itself.
“Well, sir; the fair un’s a remarkable nice young lady. She’s got sich a sweet temper, an’s dreadfully good-lookin’, too. But, sir, if it come to a question of beauty, I shed say—in course I ain’t much of a judge—but I shed say the dark ’un’s a splendiferous creetur!”