deeply wounded. He took his hat from the disapproving
Tomes, and went out to the sea to think. He supposed he was going to
think about David's future and the terrible blow his paper had just
received.

As the door closed behind him, Eddie turned to Mr. Cord with a world
of reproach in his eyes.

"Well," he said, "I must say, sir, I think you were unnecessarily
gentle with that fellow."

"Seemed to me a fine young fellow," said Mr. Cord.

"Asking him to lunch," said Eddie.

"I did that for Crystal," replied Cord, getting up and slapping his
pockets--a gesture which in some subconscious way he hoped would make
Eddie go home. "She's always so keen to meet new people. If she heard
that the editor of _Liberty_ had been here while she was asleep and
that I had not tried to keep him for her to see--whew!--she would make
a scene."

"But she oughtn't to see people like that," protested Eddie, as if
he were trying to talk sense in a madhouse. "That was what I was just
explaining to you, Mr. Cord, when--"

"So you were, Eddie, so you were," said Mr. Cord. "Stay to lunch and
tell Crystal. Or, rather," he added, hastily glancing at the clock,
"come back to lunch in an hour. I have to go now and see--" Mr. Cord
hesitated for the fraction of a second--"the gardener. If you don't
see gardeners now and then and let them scold you about the weather
and the Lord's arrangement of the seasons, they go mad and beat their
wives. See you later, Eddie," and Mr. Cord stepped out through the
French window. It was only great crises like these that led him to
offer himself up to the attacks of his employees.

A severe elderly man with a long, flat upper lip and side whiskers
immediately sprang apparently from the earth and approached him. He
had exactly the manner of resolute gloom that a small boy has when
something has gone wrong at school and he wants his mother to drag it
out of him.

"Good morning, sir," he said.

"Morning, McKellar," said Cord, gayly. "Everything's all right, I
suppose."

McKellar shook his head. Everything was about as far from all right as
it well could be. The cook was a violent maniac who required peas to
be picked so young that they weren't worth the picking. Tomes and his
footman were a band of malicious pirates who took pleasure in cutting
for the table the very buds which McKellar was cherishing for the
horticultural show. And as for the season--McKellar could not remember
such a devastatingly dry Aug