Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/234

222 I had made on the occasion of my last visit. I then placed the doctor's new hat I had repudiated in the hat-box ready for removal.

The full mystery was still unsolved, while the butler stood in the hall like a hypnotized sphinx. I said, in a light and casual way, "And what about Lord Andrew? Did his lordship answer the note?" The butler replied, with extreme emphasis, "He did indeed!" Poor duchess, I thought, what a pity she had been so violent and so hasty.

Still the dirty hat remained shrouded in mystery, so, pointing to it, I said to the butler, "By the way, whose hat is that?" "That hat, sir," he replied, adopting the manner of a showman in a museum, "that hat is the duke's. It is the hat His Grace always wears when he goes out in the morning." "But then," I asked, "why did you not tell the duchess so yesterday?" He replied, "What, sir! After Her Grace had said that the hat was enough to poison the house! Not me!"