Chapter VIII

Lady Shuttleworth then, busiest and most unsuspecting of women, was whisking through her breakfast and her correspondence next morning with her customary celerity and method, when a servant appeared and offered her one of those leaves from Fritzing's note-book which we know did duty as his cards.

Tussie was sitting at the other end of the table very limp and sad after a night of tiresome tossing that was neither wholly sleep nor wholly wakefulness, and sheltered by various dishes with spirit-lamps burning beneath them worked gloomily at a sonnet inspired by the girl he had met the day before while his mother thought he was eating his patent food. The girl, it seemed, could not inspire much, for beyond the fourth line his muse refused to go; and he was beginning to be unable to stop himself from an angry railing at the restrictions the sonnet form forces upon poets who love to be vague, which would immediately have concentrated his mother's attention on himself and resulted in his having to read her what he had written--for she sturdily kept up the fiction of a lively interest in his poetic tricklings--when the servant came in with Fritzing's leaf.

"A gentleman wishes to see you on business, my lady," said the servant.

"Mr. Neumann-Schultz?" read out Lady Shuttleworth in an inquiring voice. "Never heard of him. Where's he from?"

"Baker's Farm, my lady."

At that magic name Tussie's head went up with a jerk.

"Tell him to go to Mr. Dawson," said Lady Shuttleworth.

The servant disappeared.

"Why do you send him away, mother?" asked Tussie.

"Why, you know things must go through Dawson," said Lady Shuttleworth pouncing on her letters again. "I'd be plagued to death if they didn't."

"But apparently this is the stranger within our gates. Isn't he German?"

"His name is. Dawson will be quite kind to him."

"Dawson's rather a brute I fancy, when you're not looking."

"Dearest, I always am looking."

"He must be one of Pearce's lodgers."

"Poor man, I'm sorry for him if he is. Of all the shiftless women--"

"The gentleman says, my lady," said the servant reappearing with rather an awestruck face, "that he wishes to speak to you most particular."

"James, did I not tell you to send him to Mr. Dawson?"

"I delivered the message, my lady. But the gentleman says he's seen Mr. Dawson, and that he"--the footman coughed slightly--"he don't want to see any more of him, my lady."

Lady Shuttleworth put on her glasses and stared at the servant. "Upon my word he seems to be very cool," she said; and the servant, his gaze fixed on a respectful point just above his mistress's