The Poison Belt | Page 9

there was Challenger to meet us. His appearance was glorious. Not
all the turkey-cocks in creation could match the slow, high-stepping
dignity with which he paraded his own railway station and the
benignant smile of condescending encouragement with which he
regarded everybody around him. If he had changed in anything since
the days of old, it was that his points had become accentuated. The
huge head and broad sweep of forehead, with its plastered lock of black
hair, seemed even greater than before. His black beard poured forward

in a more impressive cascade, and his clear grey eyes, with their
insolent and sardonic eyelids, were even more masterful than of yore.
He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the
head master bestows upon the small boy, and, having greeted the others
and helped to collect their bags and their cylinders of oxygen, he
stowed us and them away in a large motor-car which was driven by the
same impassive Austin, the man of few words, whom I had seen in the
character of butler upon the occasion of my first eventful visit to the
Professor. Our journey led us up a winding hill through beautiful
country. I sat in front with the chauffeur, but behind me my three
comrades seemed to me to be all talking together. Lord John was still
struggling with his buffalo story, so far as I could make out, while once
again I heard, as of old, the deep rumble of Challenger and the insistent
accents of Summerlee as their brains locked in high and fierce scientific
debate. Suddenly Austin slanted his mahogany face toward me without
taking his eyes from his steering-wheel.
"I'm under notice," said he.
"Dear me!" said I.
Everything seemed strange to-day. Everyone said queer, unexpected
things. It was like a dream.
"It's forty-seven times," said Austin reflectively.
"When do you go?" I asked, for want of some better observation. "I
don't go," said Austin.
The conversation seemed to have ended there, but presently he came
back to it.
"If I was to go, who would look after 'im?" He jerked his head toward
his master. "Who would 'e get to serve 'im?"
"Someone else," I suggested lamely.

"Not 'e. No one would stay a week. If I was to go, that 'ouse would run
down like a watch with the mainspring out. I'm telling you because
you're 'is friend, and you ought to know. If I was to take 'im at 'is
word--but there, I wouldn't have the 'eart. 'E and the missus would be
like two babes left out in a bundle. I'm just everything. And then 'e goes
and gives me notice."
"Why would no one stay?" I asked.
"Well, they wouldn't make allowances, same as I do. 'E's a very clever
man, the master--so clever that 'e's clean balmy sometimes. I've seen
'im right off 'is onion, and no error. Well, look what 'e did this
morning."
"What did he do?"
Austin bent over to me.
"'E bit the 'ousekeeper," said he in a hoarse whisper.
"Bit her?"
"Yes, sir. Bit 'er on the leg. I saw 'er with my own eyes startin' a
marathon from the 'all-door."
"Good gracious!" "So you'd say, sir, if you could see some of the
goings on. 'E don't make friends with the neighbors. There's some of
them thinks that when 'e was up among those monsters you wrote about,
it was just `'Ome, Sweet 'Ome' for the master, and 'e was never in fitter
company. That's what THEY say. But I've served 'im ten years, and I'm
fond of 'im, and, mind you, 'e's a great man, when all's said an' done,
and it's an honor to serve 'im. But 'e does try one cruel at times. Now
look at that, sir. That ain't what you might call old-fashioned 'ospitality,
is it now? Just you read it for yourself."
The car on its lowest speed had ground its way up a steep, curving
ascent. At the corner a notice-board peered over a well-clipped hedge.
As Austin said, it was not difficult to read, for the words were few and

arresting:--
|---------------------------------------| | WARNING. | | ---- | | Visitors,
Pressmen, and Mendicants | | are not encouraged. | | | | G. E.
CHALLENGER. | |_______________________________________|
"No, it's not what you might call 'earty," said Austin, shaking his head
and glancing up at the deplorable placard. "It wouldn't look well in a
Christmas card. I beg your pardon, sir, for I haven't spoke as much as
this for many a long year, but to-day my feelings seem to 'ave got the
better of me. 'E can sack me till 'e's blue in the face, but I ain't going,
and that's flat. I'm 'is man and 'e's my master, and so it