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"We are speaking of the Stockheath breach-of-promise case, Miss Simpson, of which you doubtless read in the newspapers. Lord Stockheath is a nephew of ours. I fancy his lordship was greatly shocked at the occurrence." "He was," chimed in Mr. Judson from down the table. "I happened to overhear him speaking of it to young Freddie.
Judson's Freddie was the Honorable Frederick, and to Judson Mr. Ferris' Percy was Lord Stockheath. It was rather a pleasant form of etiquette, and struck Ashe as somehow vaguely feudal. "Percy," went on Mr. Ferris, "is bearing it like a little Briton the damages not having come out of his pocket! It's his old father who had to pay them that's taking it to heart.
And I happen to know he followed the affair of Lord Stockheath pretty closely, for he clipped the clippings out of the paper. I found them myself one day when I happened to be going through his things." Beach cleared his throat his mode of indicating that he was about to monopolize the conversation.
It was in the library on the morning when the judge made his final summing up and slipped it into Lord Stockheath so proper. 'If ever anything of this sort happens to you, you young scalawag, he says to Freddie " Mr. Beach coughed. "Mr. Judson!" "Oh, it's all right, Mr. Beach; we're all in the family here, in a manner of speaking. It wasn't as though I was telling it to a lot of outsiders.
He wished he could meet the money-lender who had been rash enough to advance the Honorable Freddie five hundred pounds. Those philanthropists cross our path too seldom. Freddie felt in his pocket, produced a cigarette case, and from it extracted a newspaper clipping. "Did you read about poor old Percy in the papers? The case, you know?" "Percy?" "Lord Stockheath, you know."
Sometimes he would head the list with the name of his Cousin Percy Lord Stockheath who refused to talk of anything except his late breach-of-promise case and the effect the verdict had had on his old governor. Freddie was in no mood just now to be sympathetic with others on their breach-of-promise cases.
"Oh, the Stockheath breach-of-promise case? I did more than that. I was in court all three days." R. Jones emitted a cozy chuckle. "Is he a pal of yours? A cousin, eh? I wish you had seen him in the witness box, with Jellicoe-Smith cross-examining him! The funniest thing I ever heard! And his letters to the girl! They read them out in court; and of all " "Don't, old man! Dickie, old top please!
As for the ordinary recreations of the country house, the guests could frequent the billiard room, where they were sure to find Lord Stockheath playing a hundred up with his cousin, Algernon Wooster a spectacle of the liveliest interest or they could, if fond of golf, console themselves for the absence of links in the neighborhood with the exhilarating pastime of clock golf; or they could stroll about the terraces with such of their relations as they happened to be on speaking terms with at the moment, and abuse their host and the rest of their relations.
He had actually overheard young Algernon Wooster telling Lord Stockheath he had a jolly good mind to sit on the stairs that night with a shotgun, because it was his opinion that there was a jolly sight more in this business than there seemed to be; and what he thought of the bally affair was that there was a gang of some kind at work, and that that feller what's-his-name? that feller Baxter was some sort of an accomplice.
Miss Willoughby's interest was diverted to a discussion of the defects of the various railroad systems of Great Britain. At the head of the table Mr. Beach had started an intimate conversation with Mr. Ferris, the valet of Lord Stockheath, the Honorable Freddie's "poor old Percy" a cousin, Ashe had gathered, of Aline Peters' husband-to-be.
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