"
"Madam," replied Mr. Lavender, "I am infinitely obliged to you. Would
you very kindly hang my hat up on the--er--weeping willow tree?"
At this moment a little white dog, who accompanied the old lady, began
sniffing round Mr. Lavender, and Blink, wounded in her proprietary
instincts, placed her paws at once on her master's shoulders, so that he
fell prone. When he recovered a sitting posture neither the old lady nor
the little dog were in sight, but his hat was hanging on a laurel bush.
"There seems to be something fateful about this morning," he mused;
"I had better go in before the rest of the female population----" and
recovering his feet with difficulty, he took his hat, and was about to
enter the house when he saw the young lady watching him from an upper
window of the adjoining castle. Thinking to relieve her anxiety, he said
at once:
"My dear young lady, I earnestly beg you to believe that such a thing
never happens to me, as a rule."
Her face was instantly withdrawn, and, sighing deeply, Mr. Lavender
entered the house and made his way upstairs. "Ah!" he thought, painfully
recumbent in his bed once more, "though my bones ache and my head burns
I have performed an action not unworthy of the traditions of public
life.
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