"But I thought my uncle was away from home."
"Of course. Why didn’t I remember that? Anyhow, while he was talking, in came that little foreign chauffeur we saw yesterday--an Italian, I fancy: he talked just like those Italian waiters at Gatti’s. He had come to order a car; said that Mr. Pratt’s car had broken down, and he had had to tow it to Dartmouth for repairs. He’d keep Blevins’s car until the repairs were done. Blevins was a bit offhand with me after that. I suppose it was the regular tradesman’s attitude to a less important customer. Anyhow, he told me rather bluntly that I couldn’t have any petrol till to-morrow, and I came away."
"Quite right. You couldn’t argue with a fellow who sucks up to my uncle, and sings my songs. I say, I think I shall go in for diplomacy. Don’t you think I’d make a first-class attaché, or whatever they call ’em?"
Astonished at the sudden change of subject, they looked at him. He winked.
"You know," he went on--"one of those fellows in foreign capitals whose job it is to see and hear everything, and look innocent, while inside they’re as wily as the cunningest old serpent. Your chronicle of Blevins is very small beer, Warrender; and while you’ve been yarning on about your old petrol, I’ve been corking myself up with something vastly more interesting, and you hadn’t the least notion of it. That’s why I’m sure I’d make no end of a hit in the diplomatic corps. Just keep your eyes fixed on my goodly countenance, will you? and I’ll enlighten your understanding."
He took up his banjo, which he had laid across his knees, struck a note or two, then proceeded--
"After I’d changed, and carried up your purchases, I sat me down to beguile the tedium of waiting for you with my unfailing resource. Happening to glance across the river, I caught sight of some one watching me from the thick of a shrub, and my lively imagination conjured up the goose-flesh sensations of old Armstrong last night. With that presence of mind which will serve me well in my climb up the diplomatic ladder to a peerage, I hummed a stave of ’Somewhere a voice is calling,’ and turned my head away with the grace of a peacefully browsing gazelle; but the fellow’s been watching me for the last half-hour, and I bet he doesn’t know he’s been spotted. Armstrong, you’ve got the best eyes. While I go on gassing, just look round as if you were jolly well bored stiff--no, I’ve a better idea; go into the tent, and take a squint through that small tear on the side facing the river, and fix your eyes on the shrub--I fancy it’s a lilac past its prime--that fills the space between two beeches in the background. I don’t flatter myself that the fellow was attracted by my dulcet strains, and if he’s watching me, you may be sure he’s watching all of us."