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When she said, "I'm going to walk over to Friar's End. Old Butterworth wants me to do some repairs which I don't feel inclined to do, so I want to have a look at the place for myself," the announcement was so little tinged by any sense of the persons she was addressing that she might as well have held up a printed placard.
This letter was for Miss Butterworth, and created, a half-hour later, quite a stir in the fine old mansion in Gramercy Park. It ran thus: Have you sufficient interest in the outcome of a certain matter to take a short journey into the country? I leave town at 1 P.M. for Belleville, Long Island.
I couldn't help hopin'; an' now, when I come to ye so, an' tell ye jest how the land lays, ye git rampageous, or tell me I'm jokin'. 'Twon't be no joke if Jim Fenton goes away from this house feelin' that the only woman he ever seen as he thought was wuth a row o' pins feels herself better nor he is." Miss Butterworth cast down her eyes, and trotted her knees nervously.
"I am equally desirous of going through that country, where I hope to shoot a giraffe, that is my great ambition," replied Wilmot; "therefore we may consider that we are all agreed, and the affair is settled; but the question is, how shall we proceed back? We must return to Hinza's territory and send back the Caffres. Shall we return to Butterworth?"
"Madam!" he cried, rising up that he might the better honor her with one of his low bows, "your idea, whether valueless or not, is one which is worthy of the acute lady who proffers it. We will act on it, ma'am, act at once. Wait till I have given my orders. I will not keep you long." And with another bow, he left the room. Miss Butterworth had been brought up in a strict school of manners.
"And so very strange, too!" echoed Number Three. "Well, it is too ridiculous for anything," Miss Butterworth repeated. "The idea of my living to be an old maid, and, what's more, making up my mind to it, and then" and then Miss Butterworth plunged into a new fit of merriment. "Well, Keziah, I hope you'll be very happy. Indeed I do," said Mrs. Snow, becoming motherly.
We are all very much interested in Miss Butterworth, as you see." "Well, I'm a little interested in 'er myself, an' I'm a goin' to pay for the splice. Jest tuck that X into yer jacket, an' tell yer neighbors as ye've seen a man as was five times better nor the law." "You are very generous." "No; I know what business is, though. Ye have to get somethin' to square the buryins an' baptizins with.
"No, but an opening into the study wall which answers the same purpose. Miss Butterworth, your eye is to be trusted every time. I only wonder you did not pull this picture aside yourself." "It was not hanging crooked then. Besides I was in a hurry. I had just come from my encounter with this demented man. I had noticed the marks on the landing, and the worn edges of the carpet, on my way upstairs.
Then Giffin, who must have overhead our remarks, approached and, in his imperious way, said: 'Sergeant Baldwin, you're only in charge of 7 Platoon temporarily, until Sergeant Butterworth comes back; you're not platoon sergeant. You understand that, Floyd? he concluded, turning to me. I think it a bit thick that one cannot choose one's own platoon sergeant....
"Very good; have her down at half-past three and I will be in front with a carriage." "I dread it," I cried; "but I will have her there." "You are beginning to like her, Miss Butterworth. Take care! You will lose your head if your sympathies become engaged." "It sits pretty firmly on my shoulders yet," I retorted; "and as for sympathies, you are full of them yourself.
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