“Caste? The damn thing has broken up like a jig-saw puzzle! Not even the Countess of Ottery, poor old darling—your mother-in-law, by the way!—can keep it going nowadays, when Younger Sons are drifting into trade. Why, Billy Wantage—Lord William of that ilk—is keeping a pub at Wadcombe, and doing very well.”
The conversation was interrupted by a red-haired boy who rode up on a bicycle with a bag slung round his shoulders, which he dumped into the cottage.
“You infernal young scoundrel!” said Arthur Izzard, “I believe you’ve been watching the cricket-match.”
“Train late,” said the boy, grinning.
Izzard seized the papers, and disregarding his customers, read the news for himself.
“Hell!” he murmured to the company, which had increased by two ladies, and an old gentleman of Mid-Victorian aspect, with white whiskers.
“What’s the latest?” asked Miss Heathcote.
“Strike officially begun. Two million men ‘out’ already. The Triple Alliance will probably join.”
“What will that mean?” asked Bertram.
Arthur Izzard gave him a queer look.