tead
of whiskers, it would have been difficult for many people to be sure
which was Lord Loudwater and which his butler.

Lord Loudwater again spluttered; then he roared: "A perquisite! What
about the Corrupt Practices Act? It was passed for rogues like you!
I'll show you all about perquisites! You'll find yourself in gaol
inside of a month."

"I shan't. There isn't a word of truth in it, or a scrap of evidence,"
said Hutchings fiercely.

"Evidence? I'll find evidence all right!" cried his master. "And if I
don't, I'll, anyhow, discharge you without a character. I'll get you one
way or another, my fine fellow! I'll teach you to rob me!"

"I haven't robbed your lordship," said Hutchings in a less surly tone.

He was much more moved by the threat of discharge than the threat of
prosecution.

"I tell you you have. And you can clear out of this. I'll wire to town at
once for another butler--an honest butler. You'll clear out the moment he
comes. Pack up and be ready to go. And when you do go, I'll give you
twenty-four hours to clear out of the country before I put the police on
your track," cried Lord Loudwater.

Mr. Manley observed that it was exactly like him to take no risk, in
spite of his fury, of any loss of comfort from the lack of a butler. The
instinct of self-protection was indeed strong in him.

"Not a bit of it. You've told me to go, and I'm going at once--this very
day. The police will find me at my father's for the next fortnight," said
Hutchings with a sneer. "And when I go to London I'll leave my address."

"A lot of good your going to London will do you. I'll see you never get
another place in this country," snarled Lord Loudwater.

Hutchings gave him a look of vindictive malignity so intense that it
made Mr. Manley quite uncomfortable, turned, and went out of the room.

Lord Loudwater said: "I'll teach the scoundrel to rob me! Write at once
for a new butler."

He took some lumps of sugar from a jar on the mantelpiece, and went
through the door which opened into the library.

In the library he stopped and shouted back: "If Morton comes about the
timber, I shall be in the stables."

Then he went through one of the long windows of the library into the
garden and took his way to the stables. As he drew near them the scowl
cleared from his face. But it remained a formidable face; it did not grow
pleasant. None the less, he spent a pleasant hour in the stables, petting
his horses. He was fond of