Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/161

Rh non-throat cigarette especially prescribed for me." He now held a match so that I was obliged to smoke. Never have I been in less humour for it.

"There, not so hard, is it? You see, we're getting on famously."

"Ain't I always said Bill was a good mixer?" called Cousin Egbert, but his gaucherie was pointedly ignored.

"Now," continued Belknap-Jackson, "suppose you tell us in a chatty, friendly way just what you think about this regrettable affair." All sat forward interestedly.

"But I met what I supposed were your villagers," I said; "your small tradesmen, your artisans, clerks, shop-assistants, tenant-farmers, and the like. I'd no idea in the world they were your county families. Seemed quite a bit too jolly for that. And your press-chap—preposterous, quite! He quizzed me rather, I admit, but he made it vastly different. Your pressmen are remarkable. That thing is a fair crumpler."

"But surely," put in Mrs. Effie, "you could see that Mrs. Judge Ballard must be one of our best people."

"I saw she was a goodish sort," I explained, "but it never occurred to me one would meet her in your best houses. And when she spoke of entertaining me I fancied I might stroll by her cottage some fair day and be asked in to a slice from one of her own loaves and a dish of tea. There was that about her."

"Mercy!" exclaimed both ladies, Mrs. Belknap-Jackson adding a bit maliciously I thought, "Oh, don't you awfully wish she could hear him say it just that way?"

"As to the title," I continued, "Mr. Egbert has from the first had a curious American tendency to present me to