"This is what you want to brighten yer up," he said confidently. "This'll fair knock 'em."
He unrolled the object in his hand. It was his pictorial waistcoat.
Alf looked askance at it.
"I dunno...." he began feebly.
"Put it on, you blinkin' idjit," said the waistcoat's owner with sudden heat. "Why, it'll make all the difference. Just what you want."
"But perhaps she won't like it," objected the love-sick swain.
"More fool she, if she don't. But she will. I knows what the nobs likes. You trust me."
Alf, reassured and over-persuaded by Bill's tone of easy confidence, put on the gorgeous garment, and then, ready at last, he went downstairs prepared for a very hot and uncomfortable walk to Dunwater. Bill followed; but finding Lucy waiting for her master outside Alf's bedroom door with a full flagon in her hand, he with the faithful damsel disappeared forthwith in the direction of his divan, and was no more seen.
As Alf opened the front door he started back in surprise and swore deeply and inexcusably. The drive was full of brightly colored figures. All his immense retinue seemed to be gathered together waiting for him, their sober garments laid aside and their richest robes put on. Six motionless figures mounted on magnificent and gayly caparisoned black horses formed the center of the group; and a seventh horse, even more gorgeously bedight, was being led up and down by a coal-black groom. Alf's heart sank. Somebody had apparently been wholesale once more.
"Farr!" called Alf sharply.