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Updated: June 4, 2025
You see, I had been sitting still on the step of the veranda so long I got nervous, for something exciting, so I took a giant firecracker out of my pocket and lit the long tail, and shoved it under the porch and looked innocent, and just then one of the flunkies with the tightest pants you ever saw came along and patted me on the head and said I was a nice boy, and that made me mad, and when he went to sit down beside me on the step I took my horse chestnut out of my pocket and put it on the step just where he sat down, and how it happened to come out so I don't know, it must have been Providence.
She saw him there, at the Cardews, surrounded by bowing flunkies a picture of wealth gained from the movies and by women who moved indolently, trailing through long vistas of ball room and conservatory in low gowns without sleeves, and draped with ropes of pearls. Women who smoked cigarettes after dinner and played bridge for money. She hated the Cardews.
Taking leave of my friends, and thanking them for their hospitality, I left for Schwerein. Upon my arrival at the seat of the dukedom I was met by a quiet landau of the Grand Ducal stables. Two flunkies in the Grand Duke's livery took my luggage, escorted me to the carriage and I was driven up to the old castle.
And yet within the hour my lord would be back to his muffins and silver service, with two flunkies behind his chair, and William would be swabbing out a boat or poling me home through the pond lilies. But why? I kept asking myself. A totally idiotic and illogical question, of course.
There's bulls on the street, so we cut through the back and over the fences. Tiny don't like that. He tells me, "Cow. What's to leave this cat here? He must weigh eighteen tons." "You're bringing him," I tell him, so he shuts up. That's how it is in the Boomer Dukes. When Cow talks, them other flunkies shut up fast. We get him in the loft over the R. and I. Social Club.
"But you were born a swell, weren't you?" he persisted. "Old family, swell diggings, trained flunkies, and all that?" "I was born a gentleman, if that is what you mean. Of an old family, yes. And there was an old house once." "How'd you ever hit the trail for the Church? I wonder! But say, you never asked me any more questions than you had to, so you can tell me to shut up, if you want to.
"Do you mean to insult me?" demanded Shuffles, unable to control his rage. "Not I. I respect you too much. You are the captain that is to be of the ship," laughed Pelham. "The captain, the second lieutenant, and all the flunkies, voted for you? and, of course, I couldn't be so deficient in politeness as to insult one who "
Without the formality of a sir he demanded our business, which started the inn people and our own boy to snickering, and made the passers-by pause and stare. Dandies who were taking the air stopped to ogle us with their spying-glasses and to offer quips, and behind them gathered the flunkies and chairmen awaiting their masters at the clubs and coffee-houses near by.
It is on record that the weather, at that moment, was of the finest English quality; he took long walks and explored London in every direction; he sat by the hour in Kensington Gardens and beside the adjoining Drive, watching the people and the horses and the carriages; the rosy English beauties, the wonderful English dandies, and the splendid flunkies.
The dark, soggy snow melted rapidly, and the swollen surface stream gnawed and tore at the honeycombed ice of the river. In the cook-shack Daddy Dunnigan superintended the labors of half a dozen flunkies in the preparation of the Gargantuan wedding feast which was to follow the ceremony, and each man of the crew worked feverishly in the staging of the great event.
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