"I wonder when your brother will expect to start,"
he began, uneasily. "Perhaps I ought to go and get ready."
"Ah, here comes his man," remarked the sister.
A round-faced, smooth-mannered youngster--whom Thorpe
discovered to be wearing cord-breeches and leather
leggings as he descended the stairs--advanced toward him
and prefaced his message by the invariable salutation.
"His Lordship will be down, sir, in ten minutes--and he
hopes you'll be ready, sir," the valet said.
"Send Pangbourn to this gentleman's room," Miss Winnie
bade him, and with a gesture of comprehensive submission
he went away.
The calm readiness with which she had provided a solution
for his difficulties impressed Thorpe greatly.
It would never have occurred to him that Pangbourn
was the answer to the problem of his clothes, yet how
obvious it had been to her. These old families did
something more than fill their houses with servants;
they mastered the art of making these servants an integral
part of the machinery of existence. Fancy having a man
to do all your thinking about clothes for you, and then
dress you, into the bargain. Oh, it was all splendid.
"It seems that we're going shooting," Thorpe found
himself explaining, a few moments later in his bedroom,
to the attentive Pangbourn. He decided to throw himself
with frankness upon the domestic's resourceful good-feeling.
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