"Have you heard what Spugg is doing?" the members of the club asked one another.
"What?"
"He's sending over Meadows, HIS OWN MAN!"
There was no need to comment on it. The cool courage of the thing spoke for itself. Meadows,—Spugg's own man,—his house valet, without whom he never travelled twenty miles!
"What else was there to do?" said Mr. Spugg when I asked him if it was true that Meadows was going. "I take no credit for sending Meadows nor, for the matter of that, for anything that Meadows may do over there. It was a simple matter of duty. My son and I had him into the dining room last night after dinner. 'Meadows,' we said, 'Henry and William are caught. Our man power at the front has got to be kept up. There's no one left but ourselves and you. There's no way out of it. You'll have to go.'"
"But how," I protested, "can you get along with Meadows, your valet, gone? You'll be lost!"
"We must do the best we can. We've talked it all over. My son will help me dress and I will help him. We can manage, no doubt."
So Meadows went.
After this Mr. Spugg, dressed as best he could manage it, and taking turns with his son in driving his own motor, was a pathetic but uncomplaining object.
Meadows meantime was reported as with the heavy artillery, doing well. "I hope nothing happens to Meadows," Spugg kept saying. "If it does, we're stuck. We can't go ourselves. We're too busy. We've talked it over and we've both decided that it's impossible to get away from the office,—not with business as brisk as it is now. We're busier than we've been in ten years and can't get off for a day. We may try to take a month off for the Adirondacks a little later but as for Europe, it's out of the question."