Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/367

 filled with poultry and early vegetables just in by the morning train from Caen; or firing instructions to his gardeners and workmen—self-contained as a ball governor on a horizontal engine and seemingly as inert, yet an index of both pressure and speed.

All this time Coco keeps up his hullabaloo, nobody paying the slightest attention. Suddenly there comes an answering cry and the cockatoo snaps his beak tight with a click and listens intently, his head on one side. It is the shriek of a siren—a long-drawn, agonizing wail that strikes the bird dumb with envy. Nearer it comes—nearer—now at the turn of the street; now just outside the gate, and in whirls Herbert’s motor, the painter beside him.

“Ah!—Lemois—the top of the morning to you and yours!” Louis’ stentorian voice rings out. “Never saw a better one come out of the skies. Out with you, Herbert. Are we the first to arrive? Here, give me that basket of grapes and box of bonbons. A magnificent run, Lemois. Left Paris at five o’clock, while the milk was going its rounds; spun through Lisieux before they were wide awake; struck the coast, and since then nothing but apple-bloom—one