Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/29

The Undoing of Dinney Crockett mouth, as he thought for a moment that it was a policeman. It was only the butler with a new suit of clothes for him. Dinney eyed them with some curiosity, for it was his first acquisition of such a character. He ordered the butler to put them down on the towel rack, and did it in a tone of authority which the butler somewhat resented. Dinney's heart sank, however, when the man with the brass buttons, "at master's orders," carried away his ragged but beloved old suit, to be incinerated down in the furnace room. Before carrying out those orders, the butler viewed Dinney's tattered raiment with unconcealed disgust. He approached the bundle suspiciously, and carried it at arm's length, significantly holding his nose as he departed.

Dinney was quick to see the intended insult. A cake of wet soap hit the man with the brass buttons, hit him squarely on the back of the neck. The soap was followed by a volley of blasphemy that was, as the butler afterwards told the chambermaid, "fairly heart-renderin' and too awful for respectable people to talk on!" 17