Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/218

 But in the present instance the wind was to be tempered to the shorn lamb, and strangely enough, the amelioration came to him from the head servant at Walmer. Alert as Wynn undoubtedly was, he never suspected that here was an instance of the power of money exerted so as to overcome an old servant's reluctance to do anything out of the ordinary.

The ancient underling who accompanied the Minister in his peregrinations through the estate, pointing out this and that of interest, approached his mission with humble diffidence, and was forced to brace himself up with the memory of gold already received and the anticipation of much larger sums still to come, the total of which would render him financially independent for the rest of his life.

"Have you ever dined, sir, at the Imperial Grand Hotel in London?"

This hostelry was one of the newest and most luxurious with which the metropolis had been endowed. The Minister smiled.

"It's not a hotel I usually patronise; still, I have been there on one or two occasions."

"Perhaps you did not notice the head-waiter?" "I take note of most things I see, and if you are referring to Heinrich, he is one not to be