“I’m not sleepy,” Macdonald said to me. “Are you?”
“Not a bit,” I replied. “Then we’ll have a sociable hour, Carew. I’m just in the humor for it.”
He took tobacco and whisky from a closet, and after filling our glasses and lighting our pipes, we joined the law clerk round the stove.
“It has been a tiresome afternoon,” the factor said finally, “but the prospect looks bright—very bright. You will be glad to hear, Mr. Burley, that his lordship—ahem! I mean your client—need not remain at Fort Garry any longer than he wishes. At least that is my opinion.”
“I am indeed relieved, sir,” the law clerk replied. “I feared grave complications. I admit that I am anxious—if I may say so without putting any slight upon your gracious hospitality—to start for England as soon as possible. There is much to be done—many legal matters to be attended to—and it is important that the new Earl of Heathermere should lose no time in claiming his title and property.”
“Lucky fellow!” said Macdonald. “And in what a cool, matter-of-fact way he takes his good fortune!”
“He is a man of the world—that accounts for it,” said I.
“It is purely a matter of breeding,” Christopher Burley replied stiffly. “Blood tells always. His lordship is a worthy descendant of an ancient family.”
“Then you won’t admit that I, or Carew here, would be as well fitted to fill the position?” Macdonald asked laughingly.
What reply the law clerk would have made will never be known, for just then from the upper part of the house rang a woman’s shrill scream.