"You'll find a fire there, I know. Having no regiment now, I look
after my servants. Mind you make use of them. I can't find enough of
work for them."

He left me, and again addressed the youth, who had by this time got
out of his great-coat, and, cold as it was, stood looking at his hands
by the hall-lamp. As I moved away, I heard him say, in a careless
tone,

"And how's Adela, uncle?"

The reply did not reach me, but I knew now who the young fellow was.

Hearing a kind of human grunt behind me, I turned and saw that I was
followed by the butler; and, by a kind of intuition, I knew that this
grunt was a remark, an inarticulate one, true, but not the less to the
point on that account. I knew that he had been in the dining-room by
the pop I had heard; and I knew by the grunt that he had heard his
master's observation about his servants.

"Come, Beeves," I said, "I don't want your help. You've got plenty to
do, you know, at dinner-time; and your master is rather hard upon
you--isn't he?"

I knew the man, of course.

"Well, Mr. Smith, master is the best master in the country, _he
is_. But he don't know what work is, _he don't_."