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As I neared it I heard voices in dispute, and on reaching the gates I found the lodge-keeper engaged in a somewhat warm altercation with an Italian organ-grinder and another fellow of the same kidney, who seemed to be his companion. The lodge-keepers had strict orders to exclude from the park all beggars without exception, and all and sundry who produced music by turning a handle.
"And he has rested more than he has written of late," I observed. "'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say." When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us "estates." These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions, game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what.
He walked the new arrivals about the park and gardens, and showed them the carte du pays, and where there was the best view of the mansion, and where the most favourable point to look at the lake: he showed, where the timber was to be felled, and where the old road went before the new bridge was built, and the hill cut down; and where the place in the wood was where old Lord Lynx discovered Sir Phelim O'Neal on his knees before her ladyship, etc. etc.; he called the lodge-keepers and gardeners by their names; he knew the number of domestics that sat down in the housekeeper's room, and how many dined in the servants'-hall; he had a word for everybody, and about everybody, and a little against everybody.
It was no good; the door was shut again in his face, and he stood alone in the dark. This was all very unusual. Lodge-keepers did not usually receive "orders" to send tramps, without credentials, on to the house which the lodge was supposed to guard.... That open gate, then, must have been intentional.
One of the lodge-keepers in Windsor Forest remarked that 'a wonderful good woman to her servants is the Queen. Her Majesty had come several times to see her husband when down with rheumatic fever, and the princesses often brought her oranges and jellies with their own hands.
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