ownstairs and escape from the
place as soon as possible. Later on he would settle with Rochester. The
servants, if they were not partners in the joke, had taken him on his
face value, his voice had evidently not betrayed him. He felt sure on
this point. He left the bath and, drying himself, donned the dressing
gown. Tooth paste and a tooth brush stood on a glass tray by a little
basin furnished with hot and cold water taps, and now, so strangely are
men constituted, the main facts of his position were dwarfed for a
second by the consideration that he had no tooth brush of his own.

Just that little thing brought his energies to a focus and his growing
irritation.

He, opened the bed-room door. The glossy haired one was putting links in
the sleeves of a shirt.

"Get me a tooth brush--a new one," said Jones, brusquely, almost
brutally. "Get it quick."

"Yes, my Lord."

He dropped the shirt and left the room swiftly, but not hurriedly,
taking care to close the door softly behind him.

It was the first indication to Jones of a method so complete and a
mechanism so perfectly constituted, that jolts were all but eliminated.

"I believe if I'd asked that guy for an elephant," he said to himself,
"he'd have acted just the same--do they keep a drug store on the
premises?"

They evidently kept a store of tooth brushes, for in less than a minute
and a half Expedition had returned with the tooth brush on a little
lacquered tray.

Now, to a man accustomed to dress himself it comes as a shock to have
his underpants held out for him to get into as though he were a little
boy.

This happened to Jones--and they were pink silk.

A pair of subfusc coloured trousers creased and looking absolutely new
were presented to him in the same manner. He was allowed to put on his
own socks, silk and never worn before, but he was not allowed to put on
his own boots. The perfect valet did that kneeling before him, shoe horn
and button hook in hand.

Having inducted him into a pink silk under vest and a soft pleated
shirt, with plain gold links in the sleeves, each button of the said
links having in its centre a small black pearl, a collar and a subfusc
coloured silk tie were added to him, also a black morning vest and a
black morning coat, with rather broad braid at the edges.

A handkerchief of pure white cambric with a tiny monogram also in white
was then shaken out and presented.

Then his valet, intent, silent, and seeming to mo