Life has gone on in all this Arcadian simplicity for full five weeks, when the appearance of the Colonel at the breakfast-table, blue frock-coated and stiff-collared, instead of in the usual easy garb adopted by him in the country of a morning, shows some intended change in his proceedings. The wags of the household, Badger Bobus and his set, are absent from the breakfast-table; for there was a heavy billiard-match on the night before, and they were yet sleeping off its effects. Nevertheless the change in the Colonel's costume is not unobserved; but before a delicately-contrived question can be put to extract its meaning, the Colonel himself announces that he has to go to town for a day, and may possibly be prevented from returning that night. Modified expressions of horror from the young ladies and gentlemen about to act in the amateur theatricals, then close impending--fears that everything will go wrong during the manager's absence, and profound distrust of themselves without his suggestions and experience. The Colonel takes these compliments very coolly--is pretty nearly certain to be back that night; and his absence will give them a chance of striking-out any new lights which may occur to them, and which can be tendered for his acceptance on his return. Miss Orpington, when appealed to to persuade her father not to be longer away than is absolutely necessary, meets the matter with her usual shoulder-shrug, and a calm declaration that in those matters she never interferes, and papa always pleases himself.
The Yorkshire baronet with money to whom she is engaged, and who does not put in appearance until after the Colonel's announcement has been made (he was one of the most interested in the billiard-match, and ran Badger Bobus very hard at the last), is really delighted at the news. He and the Colonel get on very well together--they are on the best of terms both as regards present and prospective arrangements; but there is, as Sir George Hawker remarks, something about the "old boy" which did not "G" with his, Sir George's, notions of perfect comfort.
Before the last of the dissipated ones has dropped-in to the dry bacon and leathery toast, the remnants of the haddocks, and the _débris_ of the breakfast, the Colonel is driving a dogcart to the station, where the signal for the express to stop is already flying. The equanimity which the old warrior has sustained in the presence of his friends deserts him a little now when there is no one near him save a stolid-faced groom who is gazing vacantly over the adjacent country. His annoyance does not vent itself on the horse--he is too good a whip for that--but he "pishes!" and "pshaws!" and is very short and sharp with the groom demanding orders as he leaves his master at the station; and when he has been sucked-up, as it were, into the train, which is again thundering on its townward way, he takes a letter from his pocket, and daintily adjusting his natty double-eyeglass on his nose, reads it through and through.