He looked again at the pondering Tinker; and
his helpless irritation found the natural English vent in grumbling.
"Look here," he said, half querulously, half whimsically, "I told you
that if you went on adding to our household, I should be travelling
about Europe with a caravan. You began by adopting Elsie as a sister,
and I said nothing. Then you added Miss Rainer as her governess, and I
warned you. Miss Rainer added her father, a millionaire, and he added
a maid, a valet, two secretaries, a courier, and a private detective.
All these people, I know them well, will marry; and I shall be a
patriarch travelling with my tribe. It must stop."
Tinker sighed. "We are a large household--twelve of us, with Selina,"
he said thoughtfully. "But you might make it more compact, sir."
"More compact--how?"
"You might marry Dorothy; and then you and she could count as one."
A sudden light of exasperation brightened Sir Tancred's eyes, and he
made a grab at Tinker's arm. His hand closed on empty air; Tinker was
flying like the wind along the promenade.
"Tinker!" roared Sir Tancred; but Tinker went round a corner at the
moment at which only the T of his name could fairly be expected to have
reached him.
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