The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight Part 5

"He gave no name, sir. He says he wishes to see you on business."

"Business! I don't do business at tea time. Send him away."

But Fritzing, for he it was, would not be sent away. Priscilla had seen the cottage of her dreams, seen it almost at once on entering the village, fallen instantly and very violently in love with it regardless of what its inside might be, and had sent him to buy it.

She was waiting while he bought it in the adjoining churchyard sitting on a tombstone, and he could neither let her sit there indefinitely nor dare, so great was her eagerness to have the thing, go back without at least a hope of it. Therefore he would not be sent away.

"Your master's in," he retorted, when the maid suggested he should depart, "and I must see him. Tell him my business is pressing."

"Will you give me your card, sir?" said the maid, wavering before this determination.

Fritzing, of course, had no card, so he wrote his new name in pencil on a leaf of his notebook, adding his temporary address.

"Tell Mr. Dawson," he said, tearing it out and giving it to her, "that if he is so much engaged as to be unable to see me I shall go direct to Lady Shuttleworth. My business will not wait."

"Show him in, then," growled Mr. Dawson on receiving this message; for he feared Lady Shuttleworth every bit as much as Mrs. Dawson feared him.

Fritzing was accordingly shown into the room used as an office, and was allowed to cool himself there while Mr. Dawson finished his tea.

The thought of his Princess waiting on a tombstone that must be growing colder every moment, for the sun was setting, made him at last so impatient that he rang the bell.

"Tell your master," he said when the maid appeared, "that I am now going to Lady Shuttleworth." And he seized his hat and was making indignantly for the door when Mr. Dawson appeared.

Mr. Dawson was wiping his mouth. "You seem to be in a great hurry," he said; and glancing at the slip of paper in his hand added, "Mr.

Newman."

"Sir," said Fritzing, bowing with a freezing dignity, "I am."

"Well, so am I. Sit down. What can I do for you? Time's money, you know, and I'm a busy man. You're German, ain't you?"

"I am, sir. My name is Neumann. I am here--"

"Oh, Noyman, is it? I thought it was Newman." And he glanced again at the paper.

"Sir," said Fritzing, with a wave of his hand, "I am here to buy a cottage, and the sooner we come to terms the better. I will not waste valuable moments considering niceties of p.r.o.nunciation."

Mr. Dawson stared. Then he said, "Buy a cottage?"

"Buy a cottage, sir. I understand that practically the whole of Symford is the property of the Shuttleworth family, and that you are that family's accredited agent. I therefore address myself in the first instance to you. Now, sir, if you are unable, either through disinclination or disability, to do business with me, kindly state the fact at once, and I will straightway proceed to Lady Shuttleworth herself. I have no time to lose."

"I'm blessed if I have either, Mr."--he glanced again at the paper--"Newman."

"Neumann, sir," corrected Fritzing irritably.

"All right--Noyman. But why don't you write it then? You've written Newman as plain as a doorpost."

"Sir, I am not here to exercise you in the proper p.r.o.nunciation of foreign tongues. These matters, of an immense elementariness I must add, should be and generally are acquired by all persons of any education in their childhood at school."

Mr. Dawson stared. "You're a long-winded chap," he said, "but I'm blessed if I know what you're driving at. Suppose you tell me what you've come for, Mr."--he referred as if from habit to the paper--"Newman."

"_Neu_mann, sir," said Fritzing very loud, for he was greatly irritated by Mr. Dawson's manner and appearance.

"_Noy_mann, then," said Mr. Dawson, equally loudly; indeed it was almost a shout. And he became possessed at the same instant of what was known to Fritzing as a red head, which is the graphic German way of describing the glow that accompanies wrath. "Look here," he said, "if you don't say what you've got to say and have done with it you'd better go. I'm not the chap for the fine-worded game, and I'm hanged if I'll be preached to in my own house. I'll be hanged if I will, do you hear?" And he brought his fist down on the table in a fas.h.i.+on very familiar to Mrs. Dawson and the Symford cottagers.

"Sir, your manners--" said Fritzing, rising and taking up his hat.

"Never mind my manners, Mr. Newman."

"_Neu_mann, sir!" roared Fritzing.

"Confound you, sir," was Mr. Dawson's irrelevant reply.

"Sir, confound _you_," said Fritzing, clapping on his hat. "And let me tell you that I am going at once to Lady Shuttleworth and shall recommend to her most serious consideration the extreme desirability of removing you, sir."

"Removing me! Where the deuce to?"

"Sir, I care not whither so long as it is hence," cried Fritzing, pa.s.sionately striding to the door.

Mr. Dawson lay back in his chair and gasped. The man was plainly mad; but still Lady Shuttleworth might--you never know with women--"Look here--hie, you! Mr. Newman!" he called, for Fritzing had torn open the door and was through it.

"_Neu_mann, sir," Fritzing hurled back at him over his shoulder.

"Lady Shuttleworth won't see you, Mr. Noyman. She won't on principle."

Fritzing wavered.

"Everything goes through my hands. You'll only have your walk for nothing. Come back and tell me what it is you want."

"Sir, I will only negotiate with you," said Fritzing down the pa.s.sage--and Mrs. Dawson hearing him from the drawing-room folded her hands in fear and wonder--"if you will undertake at least to imitate the manners of a gentleman."

"Come, come, you musn't misunderstand me," said Mr. Dawson getting up and going to the door. "I'm a plain man, you know--"

"Then, sir, all I can say is that I object to plain men."

"I say, who are you? One would think you were a duke or somebody, you're so peppery. Dressed up"--Mr. Dawson glanced at the suit of pedagogic black into which Fritzing had once more relapsed--"dressed up as a street preacher."

"I am not dressed up as anything, sir," said Fritzing coming in rather hurriedly. "I am a retired teacher of the German tongue, and have come down from London in search of a cottage in which to spend my remaining years. That cottage I have now found here in your village, and I have come to inquire its price. I wish to buy it as quickly as possible."

"That's all very well, Mr.--oh all right, all right, I won't say it.

But why on earth don't you write it properly, then? It's this paper's set me wrong. I was going to say we've got no cottages here for sale.

And look here, if that's all you are, a retired teacher, I'll trouble you not to get schoolmastering me again."

"I really think, sir," said Fritzing stretching his hand towards his hat, "that it is better I should try to obtain an interview with Lady Shuttleworth, for I fear you are const.i.tutionally incapable of carrying on a business conversation with the requisite decent self-command."

"Pooh--you'll get nothing out of her. She'll send you back to me. Why, you'd drive her mad in five minutes with that tongue of yours. If you want anything I'm your man. Only let's get at what you do want, without all these confounded dictionary words. Which cottage is it?"

"It is the small cottage," said Fritzing mastering his anger, "adjoining the churchyard. It stands by itself, and is separated from the road by an extremely miniature garden. It is entirely covered by creeping plants which I believe to be roses."

"That's a couple."

"So much the better."