ssed through his clenched teeth. "If you and me
is to be enemies, look out! You know me--leastways you ought to; and
_you_ know I stick at nothing!"

She was still dreadfully frightened. Once more she went back to the
old plea, and offered him fifty pounds--a hundred pounds. Anything!

He was tying the knots of his bundle. Completing the last, he looked
up, and the glare in his eyes haunted her through many a sleepless
night.

"You've done it now!" was all he muttered. "When next you see me
you'll wish you hadn't."

It speaks well for Jim's self-command that, as he went down, he could
say, "Your servant, my lord," with perfect composure, to a gentleman
whom he met on the stairs.

CHAPTER XX

"THE LITTLE CLOUD"

Lord Bearwarden, like other noblemen and gentlemen keeping house in
London, was not invariably fortunate in the selection of his servants.
The division of labour, that admirable system by which such great
results are attained, had been brought to perfection in his as in many
other establishments. A man who cleaned knives, it appeared, could
not possibly do anything else, and for several days the domestic
arrangements below-stairs had been disturbed by a knotty question as
to _whose_ business it was to answer "my lord's bell". Now my lord
was what his servants called rather "a arbitrary gentleman", seeming,
indeed, to entertain the preposterous notion that these were paid
their wages in consideration of doing as they were bid. It was
not therefore surprising that figure-footmen, high of stature and
faultless in general appearance, should have succeeded each other with
startling rapidity, throwing up their appointments and doffing his
lordship's livery, without regard to their own welfare or their
employer's convenience, but in accordance with some Quixotic notions
of respect for their office and loyalty to their order.

Thus it came about that a subordinate in rank, holding the appointment
of second footman, had been so lately enlisted as not yet to have made
himself acquainted with the personal appearance of his master; and it
speaks well for the amiable disposition of this recruit that, although
his liveries were not made, he should, during the temporary absence of
a fellow-servant, who was curling his whiskers below, have consented
to answer the door.

Lord Bearwarden had rung like any other arrival; but it must be
allowed that his composure was somewhat ruffled when refused
admittance by