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Page 54
"No, no. I suffer from my feet simultaneously."
Ashe gave up the struggle.
"Tell me all about your feet," he said.
And Mr. Beach told him all about his feet.
The pleasantest functions must come to an end, and the moment
arrived when the final word on the subject of swollen joints was
spoken. Ashe, who had resigned himself to a permanent
contemplation of the subject, could hardly believe he heard
correctly when, at the end of some ten minutes, his companion
changed the conversation.
"You have been with Mr. Peters some time, Mr. Marson?"
"Eh? Oh! Oh, no only since last Wednesday."
"Indeed! Might I inquire whom you assisted before that?"
For a moment Ashe did what he would not have believed himself
capable of doing--regretted that the topic of feet was no longer
under discussion. The question placed him in an awkward position.
If he lied and credited himself with a lengthy experience as a
valet, he risked exposing himself. If he told the truth and
confessed that this was his maiden effort in the capacity of
gentleman's gentleman, what would the butler think? There were
objections to each course, but to tell the truth was the easier
of the two; so he told it.
"Your first situation?" said Mr. Beach. "Indeed!"
"I was--er--doing something else before I met Mr. Peters," said
Ashe.
Mr. Beach was too well-bred to be inquisitive, but his eyebrows
were not.
"Ah!" he said. "?" cried his eyebrows. "?--?--?"
Ashe ignored the eyebrows.
"Something different," he said.
There was an awkward silence. Ashe appreciated its awkwardness.
He was conscious of a grievance against Mr. Peters. Why could not
Mr. Peters have brought him down here as his secretary? To be
sure, he had advanced some objection to that course in their
conversation at the offices of Mainprice, Mainprice & Boole; but
merely a silly, far-fetched objection. He wished he had had the
sense to fight the point while there was time; but at the moment
when they were arranging plans he had been rather tickled by the
thought of becoming a valet. The notion had a pleasing
musical-comedy touch about it. Why had he not foreseen the
complications that must ensue? He could tell by the look on his
face that this confounded butler was waiting for him to give a
full explanation. What would he think if he withheld it? He would
probably suppose that Ashe had been in prison.
Well, there was nothing to be done about it. If Beach was
suspicious, he must remain suspicious. Fortunately the suspicions
of a butler do not matter much.
Mr. Beach's eyebrows were still mutely urging him to reveal all,
but Ashe directed his gaze at that portion of the room which Mr.
Beach did not fill. He would be hanged if he was going to let
himself be hypnotized by a pair of eyebrows into incriminating
himself! He glared stolidly at the pattern of the wallpaper,
which represented a number of birds of an unknown species seated
on a corresponding number of exotic shrubs.
The silence was growing oppressive. Somebody had to break it
soon. And as Mr. Beach was still confining himself to the
language of the eyebrow and apparently intended to fight it out
on that line if it took all Summer, Ashe himself broke it.
It seemed to him as he reconstructed the scene in bed that night
that Providence must have suggested the subject to Mr. Peters'
indigestion; for the mere mention of his employer's sufferings
acted like magic on the butler.
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