"Then Mr. Bouncer is not in the house now?"
"No, sir; he has not yet returned."
"I think I should like to see him when he comes in: I shall be in the study. Perhaps you will send him to me?"
"Yes, sir."
Whereupon young Winstanley, who had looked quite grave during the brief colloquy, walked into the study, shut the door, and then, throwing himself into the easy chair in which Mr. Bouncer had sat during his interview with Dr. Dustacre, burst into laughter, which was none the less hearty because it was noiseless.
While Simon Pure was thus enjoying his brief time of victory, his innocent victim was being whirled on in the four-wheeled chaise to the Barham Station, sitting in uncomfortable proximity to the burly, broad-shouldered individual who had hoisted him, by main force, into the vehicle. When Mr. Bouncer was enabled to look at this person more closely, it struck him that, both in appearance and costume, he was very like a bailiff. Now, the only bailiff with whom the little gentleman had any sort of an acquaintance, was Dibbs, his own farm-bailiff in Herefordshire. But Dibbs, although he was burly, and had broad shoulders, conveyed to the spectator's mind a very different impression to that left upon it by a survey of the individual who was now Mr. Bouncer's vis-à-vis. This person seemed to belong to the class of obnoxious people who tap impecunious gentlemen on their shoulders, and show them slips of paper in which the name of her Majesty is brought forward in an unpleasant manner. Mr. Bouncer had a general idea of this particular kind of bailiff, whose official duty it is to arrest debtors; but, happily, he had not hitherto formed
