Thorpe swung on his heel, and moved briskly toward the
further door, which he could see opened upon the lawn.
He was conscious of annoyance with this moon-faced,
dawdling Gafferson, who had been afforded such a splendid
chance of profiting by an old acquaintanceship--it might even
be called, as things went in Honduras, a friendship--and
who had so clumsily failed to rise to the situation.
The bitter thought of going back and giving him a half-crown
rose in Thorpe's inventive mind, and he paused for
an instant, his hand on the door-knob, to think it over.
The gratuity would certainly put Gafferson in his place,
but then the spirit in which it was offered would be wholly
lost on his dull brain. And moreover, was it so certain
that he would take it? He had not said "sir" once, and he
had talked about medals with the pride of a scientist.
The rules were overwhelmingly against a gardener rejecting
a tip, of course, but if there was no more than one chance
in twenty of it, Thorpe decided that he could not afford
the risk.

He quitted the greenhouse with resolution, and directed his
steps toward the front of the mansion. As he entered the hall,
a remarkably tuneful and resonant chime filled his ears
with novel music. He looked and saw that a white-capped,
neatly-clad domestic, standing with her back to him beside
the newel-post of the stairs, was beating out the tune
with two padded sticks upon some strips of metal ranged on
a stand of Indian workmanship. The sound was delightful,
but even more so was the implication that it betokened breakfast.