The ceremonial being concluded, the two gentlemen reclaimed him and led him outside, and there he met Mrs. Gridley, who drove him up the Palisades Road, her husband and brother following in a chartered taxi with Mr. Boyce-Upchurch's luggage. There was quite a good deal of luggage, including a strapped steamer-rug and two very bulging, very rugged-looking kit bags and a leather hat-box and a mysterious flat package in paper wrappings which Mr. Braid told Mr. Gridley he was sure must contain a framed steel engraving of the Death of Nelson.
"For a truly great and towering giant of literature, our friend seems very easy to control in money matters. Docile--that's the word for it, docile. He let me tip the porter at the club for bringing down these two tons of his detachable belongings, and on the way up Madison Avenue he deigned to let me jump out and go in a shop and buy him an extra strap for his blanket roll, and he graciously suffered me to pay for a telegram he sent from the other side, and also for that shoe-shine and those evening papers he got on the boat. Told me he hadn't learned to distinguish our Yankee small change. Always getting the coins mixed up, he said. Maybe he hasn't had any experience."
"Rather brusk in his way of speaking to a fellow," admitted Mr. Gridley. "You might almost call it short. And rather fussy about getting what he wants, I should say. Still, I suppose he has a great deal on his mind."
"Launcelot will fairly dote on him," said Mr. Braid. "Mark my words, Launcelot is going to fall in love with him on the spot."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Gridley was endeavoring to explain to Mr. Boyce-Upchurch why it was that in a town lying practically on a river so large and so wide as the Hudson there could be a water shortage. He couldn't appear to grasp it. He declared it to be extraordinary.
This matter of a water shortage apparently lingered in his mind, for half an hour later following tea, as he was on the point of going aloft to his room to dress for dinner he called back to his host from half-way up the stairs:
"I say, Gridley, no water in the taps, your wife tells me. Extraordinary, what? Tell you what: I'll be needing a rub-down tonight--stuffy climate here and all that. So later on just let one of your people fetch up a portable tub to my room and bring along lots of water, will you? The water needn't be hot. Like it warm, though. Speak about it, will you, to that slavey of yours."