Page:The Collector by May Sinclair.djvu/12

 Drawn by Harry Raleigh

like, but from the expression of Abadam's face as he gazed at him I conceived a faint hope for my show.

The servants, being well-trained, had fled at the first sight of him; all except the valet, who was officially entitled to remain.

Watt Gunn still stood in the bath-room door and glared at us over his mustache.

He said, when we 'd quite done laughing, perhaps we 'd tell him how he was to get out of that confounded place without being seen. We told him first of all to get into his own clothes; but when he 'd got into them, he still insisted that he did n't want to be seen. His mind was running on Mrs. Folyat-Raikes.

Abadam said it would be very unpleasant for everybody if he was seen; and we said of course he must n't be. Abadam, with the idea he had and his fear of unpleasantness, played beautifully into our hands.

And so we got him away, down the back stairs, through the basement, and out up the area steps, wearing the butler's light covert-coat over his own dress-suit.

Burton declares that he saw Airs. Folyat-Raikes in the distance, sweeping through the reception-room and crying: "I 'm looking for Mr. Watt Gunn. Has anybody seen Mr. Watt Gunn?"

And the Abadams go about saying that Watt Gunn drinks. They say he has it in bouts, and that he retires periodically to a home for inebriates somewhere near Leith Hill.

But even that has n't done him any good. He is more celebrated than ever.