A Damsel in Distress

He accosted a passing fellow-servitor.

"Seen young blighted Albert anywhere, Freddy?"

It was in this shameful manner that that mastermind was habitually

referred to below stairs.

"Seen 'im going into the scullery not 'arf a minute ago," replied

Freddy.

"Thanks."

"So long," said Freddy.

"Be good!" returned Keggs, whose mode of speech among those of his

own world differed substantially from that which he considered it

became him to employ when conversing with the titled.

The fall of great men is but too often due to the failure of their

miserable bodies to give the necessary support to their great

brains. There are some, for example, who say that Napoleon would

have won the battle of Waterloo if he had not had dyspepsia. Not

otherwise was it with Albert on that present occasion. The arrival

of Keggs found him at a disadvantage. He had been imprudent enough,

on leaving George, to endeavour to smoke a cigar, purloined from

the box which stood hospitably open on a table in the hall. But for

this, who knows with what cunning counter-attacks he might have

foiled the butler's onslaught? As it was, the battle was a

walk-over for the enemy.

"I've been looking for you, young blighted Albert!" said Keggs

coldly.

Albert turned a green but defiant face to the foe.

"Go and boil yer 'ead!" he advised.

"Never mind about my 'ead. If I was to do my duty to you, I'd give

you a clip side of your 'ead, that's what I'd do."

"And then bury it in the woods," added Albert, wincing as the

consequences of his rash act swept through his small form like some

nauseous tidal wave. He shut his eyes. It upset him to see Keggs

shimmering like that. A shimmering butler is an awful sight.

Keggs laughed a hard laugh. "You and your cousins from America!"

"What about my cousins from America?"

"Yes, what about them? That's just what Lord Belpher and me have

been asking ourselves."

"I don't know wot you're talking about."

"You soon will, young blighted Albert! Who sneaked that American

fellow into the 'ouse to meet Lady Maud?"

"I never!"

"Think I didn't see through your little game? Why, I knew from the

first."

"Yes, you did! Then why did you let him into the place?"

Keggs snorted triumphantly. "There! You admit it! It was that

feller!"

Too late Albert saw his false move--a move which in a normal state

of health, he would have scorned to make. Just as Napoleon, minus a

stomach-ache, would have scorned the blunder that sent his

Cuirassiers plunging to destruction in the sunken road.

"I don't know what you're torkin' about," he said weakly.