"I am talking above your head altogther, Mrs. Frost,"--he said, placidly--"I know it! I am aware that my consonances do not tympanise on your brain. Good afternoon!"
"Petrol Stored Here!"--said Bainton, standing squat before the announcement, as he returned from his day's work--"Hor-hor-hor! Hor- hor! I say, Mr. Netlips, don't blow us all into the middle of next week. Where does ye store it? Out in the coal-shed? It's awful 'spensive, ain't it?"
"It is costly,"--admitted Mr. Netlips, with a grandiose manner, implying that even if it had cost millions he would have been equal to 'stocking' it--"But the traveling aristocrat does not interrogate the lucrative matter."
"Don't he?" and Bainton scratched his head ruminatively. "I s'pose you knows what you means, Mr. Netlips, an' you gen'ally means a lot. Howsomever, I thought you was dead set against aristocrats anyway-- your pol'tics was for what you call masses,--not classes, nor asses neither. Them was your sentiments not long ago, worn't they?"
Mr. Netlips drew himself up with an air of offended dignity.
"You forestall me wrong, Thomas Bainton,"--he said--"And I prefer not to amplify the conference. A sentiment is no part of a political propinquity."
With that, he retired into the recesses of his 'general store,' leaving Bainton chuckling to himself, with a broad grin on his weatherbeaten countenance.
The 'Petol' board displayed on the front of Mr. Netlips' shop, however, was just one of those slight indications which showed the vague change that had crept over the erstwhile tranquil atmosphere of St. Rest. Among other signs and tokens of internal disquiet was the increasing pomposity of the village post-mistress, Mrs. Tapple. Mrs. Tapple had grown so accustomed to various titles and prefixes of rank among the different guests who came in turn to stay at the Manor, that whereas she had at one time stood in respectful awe of old Pippitt because he was a 'Sir,' she now regarded him almost with contempt. What was a 'Sir' to a 'Lord'? Nothing!--less than nothing! For during one week she had sold stamps to a real live Marquis and post-cards to a 'Right Honourable,' besides despatching numerous telegrams for the Countess of Beaulyon. By all the gods and little fishes, Sir Morton Pippitt had sunk low indeed!--for when Mrs. Tapple, bridling with scorn, said she 'wondered 'ow a man like 'im wot only made his money in bone-boilin' would dare to be seen with Miss Vancourt's real quality' it was felt that she was expressing an almost national sentiment.