A uniformed maid entered the kitchen with an empty tray on which she had taken early-morning tea to Miss Jade’s guests. George, the drinks steward and table waiter, was already at breakfast at a side table to which Bisker drifted. Another maid set down before him his breakfast of bacon and eggs, toast and coffee for Miss Jade fed her staff well.

“Mornin’, George!”

“Morning, Bisker,” replied George, a sleek man of about thirty, pale of face, dark of eyes and hair. “Nice day.”

“Yes. Gonna be a warm day after the frost. Wind’s gone round to the west. Thefrost’ll thaw off quick. Might get rain tonight. What time you get to bed?”

“About eleven,” replied George. “The men were tired and cleared off to bed early.”

“You tuck ’emall in nice and comfy?” Bisker enquired with his mouth full.

George smiled in his superior manner.

“All bar the bridegroom,” he admitted. “I left him to the bride.”

Bisker winked and leered. He glanced furtively over a shoulder observed that one of the maids and the cook were standing close, winked again at George and refrained from making an evil remark. The remark was never made, because George, having finished his breakfast, departed for the dining room.

Presently Bisker rose and shuffled out of the kitchen. He left the building by the scullery door and crossed the yard to the wood-stack where, sitting on a splitting-log in the warm sunshine, he fell to slicing chips from his tobacco plug. The slight problem of the wet shoes had vanished from his mind.

Having smoked for ten minutes, he put away his pipe and took up an axe with which he proceeded to split foot-length logs into billets for the cooking range. In addition to the kitchen and the boiler fires, there were the lounge and dining room fires to be fed, great blazing fires so much preferred to the cheerless gas and electric fires in the homes of the guests.