kitchen quarters, Clovis screamed a frantic though
strictly non-committal summons: "Poor Lady Bastable! In the
morning-room! Oh, quick!" The next moment the butler, cook, page-boy,
two or three maids, and a gardener who had happened to be in one of the
outer kitchens were following in a hot scurry after Clovis as he headed
back for the morning-room. Lady Bastable was roused from the world of
newspaper lore by hearing a Japanese screen in the hall go down with a
crash. Then the door leading from the hall flew open and her young
guest tore madly through the room, shrieked at her in passing, "The
jacquerie! They're on us!" and dashed like an escaping hawk out
through the French window. The scared mob of servants burst in on his
heels, the gardener still clutching the sickle with which he had been
trimming hedges, and the impetus of their headlong haste carried them,
slipping and sliding, over the smooth parquet flooring towards the
chair where their mistress sat in panic-stricken amazement. If she had
had a moment granted her for reflection she would have behaved, as she
afterwards explained, with considerable dignity. It was probably the
sickle which decided her, but anyway she followed the lead that Clovis
had given her through the French window, and ran well and far across
the lawn before the eyes of her astonished retainers.

* * * * *

Lost dignity is not a possession which can be restored at a moment's
notice, and both Lady Bastable and the butler found the process of
returning to normal conditions almost as painful as a slow recovery
from drowning. A jacquerie, even if carried out with the most
respectful of intentions, cannot fail to leave some traces of
embarrassment behind it. By lunch-time, however, decorum had
reasserted itself with enhanced rigour as a natural rebound from its
recent overthrow, and the meal was served in a frigid stateliness that
might have been framed on a Byzantine model. Halfway through its
duration Mrs. Sangrail was solemnly presented with an envelope lying on
a silver salver. It contained a cheque for forty-nine shillings.

The MacGregor boys learned how to play poker-patience; after all, they
could afford to.

THE BACKGROUND

"That woman's art-jargon tires me," said Clovis to his journalist
friend. "She's so fond of talking of certain pictures as 'growing on
one,' as though they were a sort of fungus."

"That reminds me," said the jou