despatch-box, he found his wife and daughter waiting to welcome him under the portico at Prior’s Tarrant, he was ready to laugh at himself; and what the Senator was ready to do he usually did promptly—as now.
“Ah, Jem!” he cried, as General Sadgrove came forward to greet him. “You’ll never believe what an ass I’ve been making of myself. Something in the British soil, I guess. It’s only this minute that I’ve been able to clear my silly brain of a lurking suspicion that his Grace’s kindness in coming to meet me covered a design on this little box. Took him for a sort of bunco-steerer.”
The General passed over the remark as a careless jest without pursuing it, but shook hands with his old friend warmly. The veteran was looking careworn and aged, the Senator thought, and he wondered, too, at the queer searching glance which the General cast upon their mutual host as the latter limped from the brougham into the hall. The Duke was engaged in making light of the thanks and reproaches showered upon him for going to Liverpool, wherefrom the Senator guessed that that singular proceeding had been unknown beforehand to the house-party.
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