Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/77

 "That 's what I get my wages for. But why do you think I 'm an odd sort of chauffeur?"

"For that matter, then, why do you think I 'm an odd lady's-maid?"

"As to that, probably I 'm no judge. I never talked to one except my mother's, and she—was n't at all like you."

"Well, that proves my point. The very fact that your mother had a maid, shows you 're an odd sort of chauffeur."

"Oh! You mean because I wasn't always 'what I seem,' and that kind of Family Herald thing? Do you think it odd that a chauffeur should be by way of being a gentleman? Why, nowadays the woods and the story-books are full of us. But things are made pleasanter for us in books than in real life. Out of books people fight shy of us. A 'shuvvie' with the disadvantage of having been to a public school, or handicapped by not dropping his H's, must knock something off his screw."

"Are you really in earnest, or are you joking?" I asked.

"Half and half, perhaps. Anyway, it isn't a particularly agreeable position—if that 's not too big a word for it. I envy you your imagination, in which you can shut yourself up in a kind of armour against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

"You would n't envy me if you had to do Lady Turnours hair," I sighed.

The chauffeur laughed out aloud. "Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed.

"I'm sure Sir Samuel would forbid, anyhow," said I.