The hostess arose; a rustle and flurry of silk and lace and the scraping
of chairs, a lingering word or laugh, and the colour vanished from the
room leaving a circle of men in black standing around the table.

Here and there a man, lighting a cigarette, bolted his coffee and cognac
and strolled out to the gun-room. Ferrall, gesticulating vigorously,
resumed his preprandial dog story to Captain Voucher; Belwether
buttonholed Alderdene and bored him with an interminably facetious tale
until that nobleman, threatened with maxillary dislocation, fairly
wrenched himself loose and came over to Siward, squinting furiously.

"Old ass!" he muttered; "his chop whiskers look like the chops of a
Southdown ram--and he's got the wits of one. Look here, Stephen, I hear
you fell into no end of a scrape in town--"

"Tu quoque, Blinky? Oh, read the newspapers and let it go at that!"

"Just as you like old chap!" returned his lordship unabashed. "All I
meant was--anything Voucher and I can do--of course--"

"You're very good. I'm not dead you know."

"'Not dead, you know'," repeated Major Belwether coming up behind them
with his sprightly step; "that reminds me of a good one--" He sat down
and lighted a cigar, then, vainly attempting to control his countenance
as though roguishly anticipating the treat awaiting them, he began
another endless story.

Tradition had hallowed the popular notion that Major Belwether was a
wit. The sycophant of the outer world seldom even awaited his first word