TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

European Majesties were painted. In spite of this
hauteur the exterior now seemed quite companion-
able, and I felt less of a nobody as I entered. A person
who might well have been Mr. Kipward himself
advanced to receive me; in his eyes there was the
bland half-disdainful interrogation of a ducal butler;
for the moment he still seemed uncertain as to my
credentials. On the walls were some antlered heads
and the whole place seemed to know much more
about sport than I did. His suavely enunciated
"what name?" made the butler resemblance more
apparent, but with his, "Ah, yes, Mr. Sherston, of
course; your coat and breeches are quite ready for you
to try, sir", and the way he wafted me up a spacious
flight of stairs, he became an old-fashioned innkeeper
who had been in first-rate service, and there seemed
nothing in the world with which he was not prepared
to accommodate me. To have asked the price of so
much as a waistcoat would have been an indecency.
But I couldn't help wondering, as I was being ushered
into one of the fitting compartments, just how many
guineas jny black hunting-coat was going to cost.

A few minutes later I was sitting on a hard, shiny
saddle and being ciphered all over with a lump of
chalk. The sallow little man who fitted my breeches
remarked that the buff Bedford cord which I had
selected was ua very popular one". As he put the
finishing touch with his chalk he asked me to stand
up in the stirrups* Whereupon he gazed upon his
handiwork and found it good. "Yes, that's a beauti-
ful seat," he remarked serenely. I wondered whether
he would say the same if he could sec me landing
over a post-and-rails on Harkaway. The artist respons-
ible for my coat was a taciturn and deferential Scotch-
man, stout, bald, and blond. He, too, seemed satisfied

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