“‘Oly ‘eavens!” murmured Mr. Brimberly in a faint voice.

The visitor, settling his bony elbows more comfortably, fanned himself until his sparse locks waved gently to and fro, and, nodding, spoke these words:

“Oh, wake thee, oh, wake thee, my bonny bird, Oh, wake and sleep no more; Thy pretty pipe I ‘ave n’t ‘eard, But, lumme, how you snore!”

Mr. Brimberly stared; Mr. Brimberly’s mouth opened, and eventually Mr. Brimberly rose and surveyed the intruder slowly, up from glittering shoes to the dome of his head and down again; and Mr. Brimberly’s ample bosom surged, his eye kindled, and his whiskers—!

“Cheer-o!” nodded the Old Un.

Mr. Brimberly blinked and pulled down his waistcoat.

“Me good man,” said he, “you’ll find the tradesmen’s entrance round the corner. Go away, if you please, and go immediate—I’m prehoccupied.”

“No, you ain’t; you’re the butler, you are, I lay my oath—

“‘Spoons an’ forks An’ drawin’ corks’

“that’s your job, ain’t it, chum?”

“Chum!” said Mr. Brimberly in tones of horror. “Chum!” he repeated, grasping a handful of indignant whisker. “Oh, outragious! Oh, very hobscene! ‘Ow dare you, sir? ‘Oo are you, sir, eh, sir—answer me, an’ answer—prompt!”

“Leave them cobwebs alone, an’ I’ll tell you, matey.”

“Matey!” groaned Mr. Brimberly, turning up his eyes.

“I’m the Guv’s familiar friend and personal pal, I am. I’m ‘is adviser, confeedential, matreemonial, circumstantial, an’ architect’ral. I’m ‘is trainer, advance agent, manager, an’ sparrin’ partner—that’s who I am. An’ now, mate, ‘avin’ ‘elped to marry ‘im, I’ve jest took a run down ‘ere to see as all things is fit an’ proper for ‘is ‘oneymoon!”

“My word, this is a mad feller, this is!” murmured Mr. Brimberly, “or else ‘e ‘s drunk!”

“Drunk?” exclaimed the Old Un, clapping on his hat very much over one eye and glaring, “wot—me?”

“I repeat,” said Mr. Brimberly, addressing the universe in general, “I repeats as ‘e is a narsty, drunken little person!”

“Person?” cried the Old Un, scowling, “why, you perishin’—”

“Old!” said Mr. Brimberly, “‘old, I beg! Enough ‘as been said—go ‘ence! ‘Oo you are I do not know, wot you are I do not care, but in these regions you do not remain; your langwidge forbids and—”

“Langwidge?” snorted the Old Un. “Why, I ain’t begun yet, you blinkin’, fat-faced, owl-eyed piece o’ sooet—”

“Your speech, sir,” continued Mr. Brimberly with calm austerity and making the most of whiskers and waistcoat, “your speech is redolent of slums and back halleys. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you! You are a feller! Go away, feller!”

“Feller?” snarled the Old Un, “why you—”

“I repeat,” said Mr. Brimberly with dignified deliberation, “I repeat as you are a very low, vulgar little feller!”

The Old Un clenched his fists.

“Right-o!” he nodded cheerily. “That’s done it! F’ that I’m a-goin’ t’ punch ye in th’ perishin’ eye-‘ole!” And he advanced upon the points of his toes, shoulders hunched, and head viciously outthrust.

“My word!” exclaimed Mr. Brimberly, retreating rather precipitately, “this is very discomposing, this is! I shall have to call the perlice.”

“Perlice!” snarled the Old Un, fiercer than ever, “you won’t have nothing t’ call with when I’ve done wi’ ye. I’m goin’ t’ jab ye on th’ beak t’ begin with, then I’ll ‘ook my left t’ your kidneys an’ swing my right to your p’int an’ crumple ye up with a jolt on your perishin’ solar plexus as ‘ll stiffen you till th’ day o’ doom!”

“‘Oly angels!” murmured Mr. Brimberly, glancing hastily about.

“Then while you lay bathed in ‘orrible gore, I’m goin’ t’ twist them whiskers into a ‘angman’s knot!”

“This is most distressing!” sighed Mr. Brimberly.

“Then,” continued the Old Un, grinding his remaining teeth, “I’m a-goin’ t’ tread your face in an’ dance on y’r blighted stummick. Arter that—”

“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Mr. Brimberly, retreating before the oncoming peril and mopping perspiring brow. But suddenly his wandering eye was arrested by velvet and gold braid, and lifting up his voice he called:

“William! James! Come ‘ere—and come sharp!”

Two vast and splendid shapes loomed upon the scene, supermen whose silken calves quivered with unaccustomed haste; at a sign from Mr. Brimberly they seized upon the Old Un and, despite ghoulish threats, solemnly bore him off.

Down the broad sweep of drive they went, the Old Un pouring forth fluent curses with every step, until they came to a powerful automobile from beneath which a pair of neatly gaitered legs protruded.

“Joe!” cried the Old Un, apostrophising these legs, “Joe, stop bein’ a crawlin’ worm—come out an’ bash these perishers for me, like a good lad!” But even while he spoke, the footmen hauled him along, so that when Joe eventually wriggled from under the car the three were close against the great gates.

The Old Un was earnestly explaining to his captors exactly what he thought of them, of their fathers and mothers, their kith and kin, and the supermen were heeding him not the least, when a thunderbolt seemed to smite them asunder, and Joe was glancing mild-eyed from one splendid, supine form to the other.

“Hullo, Old Un!” said he, “what’s the matter now, you old book o’ bad language, you?”

But Mr. Brimberly, somewhat shaken with his late interview and feeling the need of a stimulant, had just refilled the long glass when, hearing a rustle behind him, he turned and beheld a tall woman, elderly and angular, especially as to chin and elbows, which last obtruded themselves quite unpleasantly; at least, as he eyed them there was manifest disapprobation in every hair of his whiskers.

“Now I wonder,” he sighed plaintively, “I wonder what under the blue expandment of ‘oly ‘eaven you might be, because if you ‘appen to be the washing—”

“I—am—not!”

“Or the cannybal missions—”

“No—sech—thing!”

“Oh!” said Mr. Brimberly, and his gaze wandered to the elbows. “Why, then, let me hinform you—”

“Ann Angelina Trapes is me name.”

“Why then, ma’am, you’ve took the wrong turning. ‘Owbeit an’ notwithstanding, ‘ooever you are and nevertheless, you will find the tradespeople’s entra—”

“You’re the gentleman as is so obligin’ as to be Mr. Ravenslee’s butler, ain’t you?”

“Sich is my perfession,” Mr. Brimberly admitted. “I am in sole charge of these premises and so being will ask you to withdraw ‘ence immediate. I will ask—”

“An’ I’ll ask you, very p’inted, what you reckon you’re doin’ in that chair?”

“Doing?”

“I’ll ask you, very p’inted, why you’re loafin’ around wastin’ your master’s time?”

“Loafing?” cried Mr. Brimberly, very red in the face. “Loaf—”

“I also ask you, very p’inted, wherefore an’ why you loaf, guzzlin’ an’ swillin’ your master’s good liquor?”

“Guzzling!” gasped Mr. Brimberly. “Oh, ‘eavens, this is a outrage, this is! I’ll—”

“It sure is! An’ so are you, winebibber!”

“Winebib—” Mr. Brimberly choked, his round face grew purple, and he flourished pudgy fists while Mrs. Trapes folded her cotton-gloved hands and watched him.

“Winebibber!” she nodded. “An’ the wine as you now bib is your master’s, consequently it was stole, an’ bein’ stole you’re a thief, an’ bein’ a thief—”

“Thief!” gurgled Mr. Brimberly. “Ha, thief’s a hepithet, thief is, and a hepithet ‘s hactionable! I’ll ‘ave you indented for perjoorious expressions—”

“Winebibber!” she sighed. “Snake an’ plunderer!”

“Never,” cried Mr. Brimberly, “never in all my days did I ever ‘earken to such contoomacious contoomacity! ‘Oo are you an’ wot—”

“Hand over that bottle and what you’ve left o’ them cigars!”

“Woman, begone!” he cried hoarsely. “Woman, if you don’t go ‘ence this very moment, I’ll have you persecuted with the hutmost vigour o’ the law for a incorrigible—female!”

“Female!” repeated Mrs. Trapes; and clasping herself in her long, bony arms she shuddered and smiled, though her eyes glared more stonily, and her elbows suggested rapier points, daggers, and other deadly weapons of offence.

“Female it were, I think?” she enquired with another grim and smiling shudder. “Now, sir, to you I sez, debased creecher, I sez, vulgar an’ dishonest loafer, I sez, sly an’ subtle serpent, I sez, return to the back scullery wherefrom you sprang lest I seize you by the hair of your cheeks an’ bounce your silly head against the wall—frequent, I sez!” and very slowly, Mrs. Trapes moved toward him.

Mr. Brimberly hesitated, but before those deadly elbows he blenched, his whiskers wilted all at once, and he retreated backwards; across the spacious drawing room, along the hall and down the stairs he went, his pace ever accelerating, until, in full flight, he reached the sanctuary of his pantry, where, having locked himself securely in, he sank panting into a chair to mop beaded brow.

“My word!” said Mr. Brimberly.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

IN WHICH SOAPY TAKES UPON HIMSELF A NEW ROLE

Soapy was alone, which in itself was no new thing, for Soapy was a solitary soul at all times; but just now he sat close against the rotting fence which skirted that desolation behind O’Rourke’s saloon. Moreover, it was night, and solitude profound was his. He sat on a battered and disused pail that chanced to be handy, a smouldering cigarette dangling from his thin-lipped mouth, his long hands pendulous between his knees, his pallid eyelids sleepily a-droop; but his eyes, quick and watchful, scanned the deeper gloom of fence and dismal outbuilding, and he sat there very patient and very still. At last he stirred slightly, the cigarette quivered and was motionless again, for, amid the shadows, he had seen a dim shape that flitted swiftly toward him; on it came, creeping swift and silent beside the fence, nearer and nearer until it resolved itself into a slender form. Then Soapy spoke.