Gage answered by an aggrieved nod, as though he held his friend responsible for the mishap. "Got my foot caught in the iron and was dragged ever so far."
"Awkward," Peckover commented. "Still you can't put that down to the peerage. Noblemen's feet don't swell, although their heads may."
"I don't," returned Gage snappishly. "Only the Quorn title doesn't seem exactly a mascot."
This was a proposition which the vendor of that equivocal dignity did not feel himself in a position to traverse. "How did you get out of it?" he asked sympathetically.
"The iron? I shouldn't have been taken out alive, with the brute bumping me over the ground fit to drive my spine out at the top of my skull," Gage replied in a victimized tone, "if it hadn't been for a chap that came along in the nick of time and held him up."
"Lucky," remarked Peckover. "Going to settle a few hundred thou. on him?" he inquired playfully.
"Not exactly. But I'm going to give him a billet on the estate. Poor devil, out-at-elbows; superior sort for all that. Knows all about farming, he tells me. He'd better have that glib old thief Treacher's place at the farm. Turn him in there, and let him make the best job he can of it. He has given me an idea of how he'd work the land, which seems pretty sensible, and at the worst he can't rob me more than Treacher has been doing."
"Good idea," Peckover agreed, not wildly interested in the arrangement.
"Yes," said Gage. "After all, the fellow saved my life. I owe him a chance of showing he can be honest as well as useful. Now, as I'm considerably bumped about and only fit for a hot bath, I'd be glad if you'd just trot the fellow down to the farm, give Treacher his notice, and show his successor how the land lies. We can put him up somewhere till Treacher clears out."
"All right," Peckover responded with a yawn. "Anything to oblige. Where is the party?"