“But I didn’t want a loader,” said the Duke.

Mr. Padbury shook his head forbearingly.

“I think,” added the Duke, “that I might now and then—just now and then, you know, Padbury!—clean my guns for myself.”

Even the footman looked shocked at this, but, being only an underling, could only exchange glances with the fellow footman who had accompanied him to the side entrance. The butler, the steward, and the keeper all directed looks of deep reproach at the Duke, and the middle-aged man in the neat garb that proclaimed the valet exclaimed: “Clean your guns for yourself, your Grace! I should think not indeed! And your Grace wet through, I daresay, with only that thin jacket!”

“Oh, no!” said the Duke. He looked down at the muddied spaniel, and added: “But Nell must be rubbed down well.”

He was assured that this should instantly be done; the keeper began to say that he should lose no time in treating the damp gun-stock with a particular preparation of his own; and the steward, prefixing his intervention with a discreet cough, informed his master that my lord had been asking if he was not yet come in.

The Duke had listened rather absently to his valet’s and his keeper’s remarks, but this had the effect of claiming his attention. He appeared to abandon his intention of going to the gun-room, and asked in a slightly apprehensive tone if he were late for dinner.

The butler, who, although officially the steward’s inferior, was a man of far more commanding personality, replied somewhat ambiguously to this question that my lord had gone upstairs to change his dress above half an hour ago.

The Duke looked startled, and said that he must make haste; whereupon the butler, relaxing his severity, assured him benignly that dinner would be held for him, and went in a stately way down the passage to open the door that led into the main hall of the house.

But the Duke again disappointed him, this time by electing to run up the secondary staircase at the end of the passage.