"Oh, very well, very well," said Sir John. Then he rang a bell for a manservant.
"Ask Mr. Powers," he said, "to be good enough to attend me in the library."
CHAPTER II
Angela Elphinspoon stood with Perriton Powers among the begonias of the conservatory. The same news which had so agitated Sir John lay heavy on both their hearts.
"Will the Wazoo rise?" asked Angela, clasping her hands before her, while her great eyes sought the young man's face and found it. "Oh, Mr. Powers! Tell me, will they rise? It seems too dreadful to contemplate. Do you think the Wazoo will rise?"
"It is only too likely," said Powers. They stood looking into one another's eyes, their thoughts all on the Wazoo.
Angelina Elphinspoon, as she stood there against the background of the begonias, made a picture that a painter, or even a plumber, would have loved. Tall and typically English in her fair beauty, her features, in repose, had something of the hauteur and distinction of her mother, and when in motion they recalled her father.
Perriton Powers was even taller than Angela. The splendid frame and stern features of Sir John's secretary made him a striking figure. Yet he was, quite frankly, sprung from the people, and made no secret of it. His father had been simply a well-to-do London surgeon, who had been knighted for some mere discoveries in science. His grandfather, so it was whispered, had been nothing more than a successful banker who had amassed a fortune simply by successful banking. Yet at Oxford young Powers had carried all before him. He had occupied a seat, a front seat, in one of the boats, had got his blue and his pink, and had taken a double final in Sanscrit and Arithmetic.
He had already travelled widely in the East, spoke Urdu and Hoodoo with facility, while as secretary to Sir John Elphinspoon, with a seat in the House in prospect, he had his foot upon the ladder of success.
"Yes," repeated Powers thoughtfully, "they may rise. Our confidential despatches tell us that for some time they have been secretly passing round packets of yeast. The whole tribe is in a ferment."