Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/251

Rh "Is he one of your gentleman drivers?" demanded the Honourable George. "And why a blind factory?"

"Oh, Eddie's good people all right," answered the other, "and the factory turns out blinds and things."

"Why turn them out?" he left this and continued: "He's like that American Johnny in London that drives his own coach to Brighton, yes? Ripping idea! Gentleman driver. But I say, you know, I'll sit on the box with him. Pull up a bit, old son!"

To my consternation the driver chap halted, and before I could remonstrate the Honourable George had mounted to the box beside him. Thankful I was we had left the main street, though in the residence avenue where the change was made we attracted far more attention than was desirable. "Didn't I tell you he was some mixer?" demanded Cousin Egbert of me, but I was too sickened to make any suitable response. The Honourable George's possession of a single spat was now flaunted, as it were, in the face of Red Gap's best families.

"How foreign it all is!" he repeated, turning back to us, yet with only his side-glance for me. "But the American Johnny in London had a much smarter coach than this, and better animals, too. You're not up to his class yet, old thing!"

"That dish-faced pinto on the off side," remarked the driver, "can outrun anything in this town for fun, money, or marbles."

"Marbles!" called the Honourable George to us; "why marbles? Silly things! It's all bally strange! And why do your villagers stare so?"

"Some little mixer, all right, all right," murmured Cousin