SKEPSEY IN MOTION

The bearer of his master’s midday letters from London shot beyond Nataly as soon as seen, with an apparent snap of his body in passing.  He steamed to the end of the terrace and delivered the packet, returning at the same rate of speed, to do proper homage to the lady he so much respected.  He had left the railway-station on foot instead of taking a fly, because of a calculation that he would save three minutes; which he had not lost for having to come through the raincloud.  ‘Perhaps the contrary,’ Skepsey said:  it might be judged to have accelerated his course:  and his hat dripped, and his coat shone, and he soaped his hands, cheerful as an ouzel-cock when the sun is out again.

‘Many cracked crowns lately, in the Manly Art?’ Colney inquired of him.  And Skepsey answered with precision of statement:  ’Crowns, no, sir; the nose, it may happen; but it cannot be said to be the rule.’

’You are of opinion, that the practice of Scientific Pugilism offers us compensation for the broken bridge of a nose?’

‘In an increase of manly self-esteem:  I do, sir, yes.’

Skepsey was shy of this gentleman’s bite; and he fancied his defence had been correct.  Perceiving a crumple of the lips of Mr. Durance, he took the attitude of a watchful dubiety.

‘But, my goodness, you are wet through!’ cried Nataly, reproaching herself for the tardy compassion; and Nesta ran up to them and heaped a thousand pities on her ‘poor dear Skip,’ and drove him in beneath the glass-dome to the fragments of pic-nic, and poured champagne for him, ‘lest his wife should have to doctor him for a cold,’ and poured afresh, when he had obeyed her:  ‘for the toasting of Lakelands, dear Skepsey!’ impossible to resist:  so he drank, and blinked; and was then told, that before using his knife and fork he must betake himself to some fire of shavings and chips, where coffee was being made, for the purpose of drying his clothes.  But this he would not hear of:  he was pledged to business, to convey his master’s letters, and he might have to catch a train by the last quarter-minute, unless it was behind the time-tables; he must hold himself ready to start.  Entreated, adjured, commanded, Skepsey commiseratingly observed to Colney Durance, ’The ladies do not understand, sir!’ For Turk of Constantinople had never a more haremed opinion of the unfitness of women in the brave world of action.  The persistence of these ladies endeavouring to obstruct him in the course of his duty, must have succeeded save that for one word of theirs he had two, and twice the promptitude of motion.  He explained to them, as to good children, that the loss of five minutes might be the loss of a Post, the loss of thousands of pounds, the loss of the character of a Firm; and he was away to the terrace.  Nesta headed him and waved him back.  She and her mother rebuked him:  they called him unreasonable; wherein they resembled the chief example of the sex to him, in a wife he had at home, who levelled that charge against her husband when most she needed discipline:  the woman laid hand on the very word legitimately his own for the justification of his process with her.