"Maria," he exclaimed, giving me a hearty grip, "this is the man that won
Mohair. My wife, Crocker."
I was somewhat annoyed at this effusiveness before the Celebrity, but I
looked up and caught Mrs. Cooke's eye. It was the calm eye of a general.
"I am glad of the opportunity to thank you, Mr. Crocker," she said
simply. And I liked her from that moment.
Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for
permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So
roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such
a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the
veranda. The Celebrity stood by the block, in an amazement which gave
me a wicked pleasure, and it was some minutes before I had the chance
to introduce him.
Mr. Cooke's idea of an introduction, however, was no mere word-formula:
it was fraught with a deeper and a bibulous meaning. He presented the
Celebrity to his wife, and then invited both of us to go inside with him
by one of those neat and cordial paraphrases in which he was skilled.
I preferred to remain with Mrs. Cooke, and it was with a gleam of hope
at a possible deliverance from my late persecution that I watched the two
disappear together through the hall and into the smoking-room.
"How do you like Mohair?" I asked Mrs. Cooke.
"Do you mean the house or the park?" she laughed; and then, seeing my
embarrassment, she went on: "Oh, the house is just like everything else
Fenelon meddles with.
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