“Wot’s troublin’ me, sir, is how is you goin’ to be hattended to when you’re hill; and how is you to get shaved, sir?”
“As to my attendance when I am ill, that is a trifle; and shaving will be unnecessary, as I have intended for some time past to turn out a full beard,” promptly responded Mr. Romaine. “Now you may go. When you are ready to leave come to me and I will give you a check.”
The idea of Mr. Romaine in a full beard drove Bridge immediately into the pantry, where he confided the news to Dodson, and they both haw-hawed in company.
Nevertheless, the loss of his man, who knew some secrets about his health, was a very serious one to Mr. Romaine. Also, he had never shaved or dressed himself in his life, and to him immaculateness of attire was a necessity. He turned the ridiculous and embarrassing question over in his mind—how was he to get shaved?—until it nearly drove him to asking Bridge to reconsider his decision. But before doing that, he went over to Corbin Hall one day, where a new solution of the difficulty presented itself.
It was a bright, wintry day in December when he was ushered into the shabby library, where sat the Colonel. Now, although none of the family from Corbin Hall had darkened the doors of Shrewsbury for a month past, Mr. Romaine had calmly ignored this, and had treated the Colonel’s studied standoffishness with the most exasperating nonchalance. Colonel Corbin could not be actively rude to any one to have saved his own life, and the extent of his resentment was shown merely in not visiting Mr. Romaine, and receiving him with a stiffness that he found much more difficult to maintain than Mr. Romaine did to endure. The struggle between the Colonel’s natural and sonorous urbanity toward a guest and his grave displeasure with Mr. Romaine was desperate; and Mr. Romaine, seeing it with half an eye, enjoyed it hugely. The idea of taking Colonel Corbin seriously was excessively ludicrous to him; and the Colonel’s expectation of being taken seriously on all occasions he thought the most diverting thing in the world.
“How d’ye do, Corbin?” said Mr. Romaine, entering with a very jaunty air.
“Good-day, Mr. Romaine,” answered the Colonel, sternly—and then suddenly and unexpectedly falling into his habitual tone, he continued, grandiloquently:
“Has your horse been put up, and may we have the satisfaction of entertaining you at dinner?”
“Oh, Lord, no,” answered Mr. Romaine, smiling; “I merely came over to see how you and Miss Corbin were coming on—and to ask you a most absurd question.”
“My granddaughter is coming on very well. For myself, at my time of life—and yours, too, I may say—there is but one thing to do—which constitutes coming on well—and that is to prepare for the ferriage over the dark river.”