Page:Richardson - 2835 Mayfair (1907).djvu/11

Rh Reggie shook his head.

"He has lately taken, or rather built, a little house in King Street, Mayfair; just near here. Didn't he tell you?"

"Never a word."

"Well, he only moved in a week ago."

"But what were you doing there? I thought that you and he were not quite "

"No," said Reggie, grimly. "But he has been very good to me one way and another. He has lent me a lot of money; I wouldn't have gone to him again, but the fact is I'm his valet." The barrister gazed at him in surprise.

"I was his valet," repeated Reggie. "He engaged me as a valet."

"You were his valet?"

Harding stared at the prematurely fat young man with three pendulous chins and an unbecomingly large waist. It seemed incredible to him that Sir Clifford Oakleigh, one of the most famous physicians of his day, one of the most brilliant men of all time, had selected that mountain of adiposity as his valet. Further, it struck him as extraordinary that a man like Reggie Pardell, a scion of one of the oldest families in England, should be willing to perform these duties.

Reggie explained.

"You see it was like this, George Harding. I was absolutely stony. Of course, I'd got clothes, and the run of my teeth, and so on. But I was