"Lady, lady!"
"I mean it."
"Oh, very well. I'll come. I've protested. That absolves me. And my hide's thick. It takes more than just a snub or two—or three to knock my number down! Am I to bring Trotters?"
"Certainly. Trotters is my friend too. I count on him to do his tricks and help entertain."
"They'll say of you, ma'am, afterward that you don't know better than ask Tripe and his vulgar dog to meet nice people."
"They'll be right, Tom. I don't know better. I hope they'll say it to me, that's all."
But Tess discovered when the day came that no American can scandalize the English. They simply don't expect an American to know bow to behave, and Tom Tripe and his marvelous performing dog were accepted and approved of as sincerely as the real American ice-cream soda— and forgotten as swiftly the morning following.
The commissioner was actually glad to meet Tripe in the circumstances. If the man should suppose that because Sir Roland Samson and a judge of appeal engaged in a three-cornered conversation with him at a garden party, therefore either of them would speak to the maharajah's drill-master when next they should meet in public, he might guess again, that was all.
One of the things the commissioner asked Tripe was whether he was responsible for the mounting of palace guards—of course not improperly inquisitive about the maharajah's personal affairs but anxious to seem interested in the fellow's daily round, since just then one couldn't avoid him.
"In a manner, and after a fashion, yes, sir. I'm responsible that routine goes on regularly and that the men on duty know their business."