"Mutton king?" Carnaby bawled, raising his arm as though to pulverize his insulter.
The evidences of his strength had meanwhile attracted Lady Agatha's attention. "Are you," she asked severely, "the person who has been taking liberties with the fire-irons?"
"Yes," answered Carnaby with justifiable pride. "I just snapped them to amuse this little wombat." Then, as a brilliant afterthought, he suggested—"Shall I ring for some more and show you how it is done?"
"By no means," was the frigid answer. "I should very much object to be shown anything of the sort. And I must request you, if your friends need amusement, to choose some other method of providing it."
"All right, don't be alarmed," replied Carnaby, on whom her grand tone was quite wasted. "Winter's coming on and I won't reduce the stock; I've got something more interesting to break than fire-irons."
"By the way," Lady Agatha observed, "we saw a strange and not very prepossessing person in the shrubbery by the drive just now. Was he by any chance a friend of yours?"
"Not likely, ma'am," Carnaby answered, "unless it was Lord Quorn, and this little wallaby tells us he is in bed."
"It was not Lord Quorn," said Lady Agatha.
The Misses Ethel and Dagmar came in breathless, with Sharnbrook between them, looking as a pick-pocket might under escort of two policemen.
"We caught him, mother, at the drive gate. I told him how sorry you were you had let him go when you meant to insist upon his staying to luncheon."