It apparently absorbed his entire attention, and his last
remark had been an unconsciously natural one. Carroll smiled grimly as
he folded the paper across his knee. "Now are the mighty fallen,
indeed," he murmured. He told Meakim of it a few minutes later, and
they both marvelled. "It's just as I told him, isn't it, and he
wouldn't believe me. It's the place and the people. Two weeks ago he
would have raged. Why, Meakim, you know Allen--Winthrop Allen? He's
one of Holcombe's own sort; older than he is, but one of his own
people; belongs to the same clubs; and to the same family, I think,
and yet Harry took it just as a matter of course, with no more
interest, than if I'd said that Allen was going to be married."
Meakim gave a low, comfortable laugh of content. "It makes me smile,"
he chuckled, "every time I think of him the day he came up them
stairs. He scared me half to death, he did, and then he says, just as
stiff as you please, 'If you'll leave me alone, Mr. Meakim, I'll not
trouble you.' And now it's 'Meakim this,' and 'Meakim that,' and 'have
a drink, Meakim,' just as thick as thieves. I have to laugh whenever I
think of it now. 'If you'll leave me alone, I'll not trouble you, Mr.
Meakim.'"
Carroll pursed his lips and looked up at the broad expanse of purple
heavens with the white stars shining through. "It's rather a pity,
too, in a way," he said, slowly. "He was all the Public Opinion we
had, and now that he's thrown up the part, why--"
The pig-sticking came to an end finally, and Holcombe distinguished
himself by taking his first fall, and under romantic circumstances.
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