in a panama hat. Providence was spoiling him.

The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the Royal Presence, not actually
walking backwards but giving the impression of doing so; and Mr.
Bennett, having decanted the mug of water into the basin, began to shave
himself.

Having finished shaving, he opened the drawer in the bureau where lay
his white flannel trousers. Here at last was a day worthy of them. He
drew them out, and as he did so, something gleamed pinkly up at him
from a corner of the drawer. His salmon-coloured bathing-suit.

Mr. Bennett started. He had not contemplated such a thing, but, after
all, why not? There was the lake, shining through the trees, a mere
fifty yards away. What could be more refreshing? He shed his pyjamas,
and climbed into the bathing-suit. And presently, looking like the sun
on a foggy day, he emerged from the house and picked his way with
gingerly steps across the smooth surface of the lawn.

At this moment, from behind a bush where he had been thriftily burying a
yesterday's bone, Smith the bulldog waddled out on to the lawn. He drank
in the exhilarating air through an upturned nose which his recent
excavations had rendered somewhat muddy. Then he observed Mr. Bennett,
and moved gladly towards him. He did not recognise Mr. Bennett, for he
remembered his friends principally by their respective bouquets, so he
cantered silently across the turf to take a sniff at him. He was
half-way across the lawn when some of the mud which he had inhaled when
burying the bone tickled his lungs and he paused to cough.

Mr. Bennett whirled round; and then with a sharp exclamation picked up
his pink feet from the velvet turf and began to run. Smith, after a
momentary pause of surprise, lumbered after him, wheezing contentedly.
This man, he felt, was evidently one of the right sort, a merry
playfellow.

Mr. Bennett continued to run; but already he had begun to pant and
falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that
ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that
occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he
saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order.
He swerved sharply, took the base of the edifice in his stride, clutched
at a jutting stone, flung his foot at another, and, just as his pursuer
arrived and sat panting below, pulled himself on to a ledge, where he
sat with his feet hanging well out of reach.