"Who's Regi? the 'bus-driver? Is the 'bus-driver a friend of yours?"
"No, my dear friend, but the Duke, Reginald Francis Henry Cheyne, seventh Duke of Shropshire. He is a most particular friend of mine. The other day----let me see, how long ago is it? A fortnight? Well, say eighteen days ago, I had a letter from him asking me to go down to Silverview and stay a week or ten days with him. But, Whiteshaw, although it was excessively kind of his grace, you see, I tell you in confidence, I can't afford to go to such places. I am really only a poor man, although people will say the other thing, and it runs away with an awful lot of money to go to such places."
"I daresay it does. But I thought the Duke of Shropshire was a queer kind of moody man, who never had anyone at his house?" said the carriage-builder maliciously.
"You are quite right. He lives the life of a recluse. But he now and then will see an old friend. You must know he has rather a fancy for the stories I write--no accounting for tastes, you know--and when I go to him he always insists on my reading my manuscripts to him before they go to the printer. Very flattering, you know."
"But he never lives ashore. He is nearly always in his yacht with his son the Marquis of Southwold."
"Of course. It is aboard ship I always read to Regi and Southwold. Reading is all very well in the day, but I tell you it is no little difficulty to read by the light of a swinging lamp when a ship is lying at anchor and rolling. Where did this accident happen, Whiteshaw?"
"In Piccadilly, at noon."
"By Jove, it must be this smash I saw. I was just passing along, but took little or no notice, as at the time I was explaining some matters of court etiquette to Lady Evelina de Lacy, who is to be presented this year."
"It has never struck me before, Cheyne, that your name is the same as that of the Shropshire family. Can it be that you are related to it?"
"No, no. It is merely a coincidence. The name is not uncommon. My father was a poor gentleman, with no pretensions to blood-connection with a ducal house. Good-day, Whiteshaw."