Yet it seemed to
pass between the two men that Gafferson was surprised,
and that there were abundant grounds for his surprise.
"Why, yes," said Thorpe, with as much nonchalance as he
could summon, "your master is one of my directors.
I've taken a fancy to him, and I'm going to make a rich
man of him. He was keen about my seeing his place here,
and kept urging me to come, and so finally I've got away
over Sunday to oblige him. By the way--I shall buy an
estate in the country as soon as the right thing offers,
and I shall want to set up no end of gardens and greenhouses
and all that. I see that I couldn't come to a better
man than you for advice. I daresay I'll put the whole
arrangement of it in your hands. You'd like that,
wouldn't you?"
"Whatever his Lordship agrees to," the gardener
replied, sententiously. He turned to the staging,
and took up one of the pots.
Thorpe swung on his heel, and moved briskly toward the
further door, which he could see opened upon the lawn.
He was conscious of annoyance with this moon-faced,
dawdling Gafferson, who had been afforded such a splendid
chance of profiting by an old acquaintanceship--it might even
be called, as things went in Honduras, a friendship--and
who had so clumsily failed to rise to the situation.
The bitter thought of going back and giving him a half-crown
rose in Thorpe's inventive mind, and he paused for
an instant, his hand on the door-knob, to think it over.
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