"If you don't obey my orders and go at once I'll throw you out of the house with my own hands, and you shall whistle for your wages."
"Like this? Do I look as if I were in a fit state of attire to open the door of even such a lady as yourself, Mrs. Lamb?"
"Are you going?"
The lady mounted two or three steps; there was something so significant in her manner that Mr. Cottrell temporised.
"I shall be only too happy to open the door as I am!--if you will allow me to pass." She allowed him, and he passed, firing a passing shot as he went. "You must understand that I intend to be perfectly frank with whoever's there--perfectly frank, and truthful. I have had more than sufficient of telling lies on your account, Mrs. Lamb." At this point, throwing the hall-door wide open, he addressed some unseen individuals who were without in tones which were perhaps unnecessarily loud. "If any of you people want money--and by the look of you I can see you do--it's no use your asking me, and so I may tell you at once, because I want money too, and from the same person, and that's Mrs. Lamb; and as Mrs. Lamb happens to be standing at this moment at the top of the staircase, in her dressing-gown and with her hair all over the place, perhaps you'll step in right away, and just say to her what you've got to say. Well, sir, and what might you happen to be wanting? Oh, it's Mr. Luker, is it? May I ask, sir, what you mean by pushing me about as if I was a mechanical toy?"
It was indeed Mr. Isaac Luker, who had come into the hall with complete disregard of the fact that Mr. Cottrell was standing in the doorway. Being in, the visitor regarded the voluble butler with characteristic impassivity. Then, stretching out the forefinger of his right hand, he tapped at the centre of Mr. Cottrell's crumpled shirt-front, and he delivered himself thus:--
"My advice to you is to put your head under the pump if there is one, and under the tap if there isn't, and let the water run for a good half-hour, for a complaint like yours it's the best medicine you can possibly have".
It seemed that Mr. Cottrell was so taken aback by the proffer of this very handsome advice that for a moment or two he was at a loss for a retort; before he found one his mistress had interposed.
"Luker, come up here!"
Mr. Luker looked at the lady at the head of the staircase, at Mr. Cottrell, at the invisible persons who still remained without. He seemed to hesitate, as if in doubt whether or not to take a hand in the game just where he was; then, arriving at a sudden resolution, he did as the lady requested: he went upstairs, followed by the retort which Mr. Cottrell had found at last.