l at once
there were a number of young men--at the horse's head, at the back
and sides of the trap, at the first doorway, and the second, and
beyond--each presenting such a smooth-faced, pallid, brown-clad replica
of all the others that Thorpe knew he should never be able to tell them
apart.

Lord Plowden paused for a moment under the candle-light to look at
his watch. "We did it in a bit over eight minutes," he remarked, with
obvious satisfaction. "With four people and heavy roads that's not so
bad--not so bad. But come inside."

They moved forward through the wide doorway into an apartment the like
of which Thorpe had not seen before. It was a large, square room, with
a big staircase at the end, which separated and went off to right and
left, half-way up its visible course. Its floor was of inlaid woods, old
and uneven from long use, and carpeted here and there by the skins of
tigers and leopards. There were many other suggestions of the chase
about the room: riding boots, whips, spurs, and some stands of archaic
weapons caught the eye at various points; the heads of foxes and deer
peeped out on the blackened panels of the walls, from among clusters of
hooks crowded with coats, hats, and mackintoshes. At the right, where a
fire glowed and blazed under a huge open chimney-place, there were low
chairs and divans drawn up to mark off a space for orderly domestic
occupation. The irregularity of every thing outside--the great table in
the centre of the hall strewn with an incongruous litter of caps, books,
flasks, newspapers, gloves, tobacco-pouches; the shoes, slippers,
and leggings scattered under the benches at the sides--all this
self-renewing disorder of a careless household struck Thorpe with a
profound surprise. It was like nothing so much as a Mexican ranch--and
to find it in the ancestral home of an English nobleman, filled to
overflowing with servants, amazed him.

The glances that he cast about him, however, were impassive enough. His
mind was charged with the ceaseless responsibility of being astonished
at nothing. A man took his hat, and helped him off with his coat.
Another moved toward the staircase with his two bags.

"If you will follow Pangbourn," said his host, indicating this second
domestic, "he will look after you. You would like to go up and change
now, wouldn't you? There's a fire in your room."

Thus dismissed, he went up the stairs in the wake of his portmanteaus,
taking the turning to the l