“You’ve been deliberate in coming,” criticized the old gentleman, testily. “I sent you word by some black rascal three days ago.”
“I just received the message to-day.” Peter remained discreetly at the gate.
“Yes; well, come in, come in. See if you can do anything with this damnable lamp.”
The old man turned with a dignified drawing-together of his dressing-gown and moved back. Apparently, the renovation of a cranky lamp was the whole content of the Captain’s summons to Peter.
There was something so characteristic in this incident that Peter was moved to a vague sense of mirth. It was just like the old régime to call in a negro, a special negro, from ten miles away to move a jar of ferns across the lawn or trim a box hedge or fix a lamp.
Peter followed the old gentleman around to the back piazza facing his study. There, laid out on the floor, were all the parts of a gasolene lamp, together with a pipe-wrench, a hammer, a little old-fashioned vise, a bar of iron, and an envelop containing the mantels and the more delicate parts of the lamp.
“It’s extraordinary to me,” criticized the Captain, “why they can’t make a gasolene lamp that will go, and remain in a going condition.”
“Has it been out of fix for three days?” asked Peter, sorry that the old gentleman should have lacked a light for so long.
“No,” growled the Captain; “it started gasping at
