His Grace — page 57: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIS GRACE. cI “T paid your own price for it, you know,” Hurst- bourne said. ““Qh yes, you paid me what I asked. One can’t really put a price upon such wine as this; but I felt that it would be a positive sin to disturb it.” He leant back in his chair and held his glass up to the light, closing one eye while he scrutinized its con- tents. “Ah I thought so!” he sighed; “it has been a little bit shaken. I remonstrated with Feltham again and again about his carelessness in carrying up wine but it was no use, and finally I had to make a point of doing it myself. The fact is that one can’t trust the best butler in the world with these delicate operations. You will find Feltham a very good, steady man in other respects, though.” Hurstbourne, who is too thorough a gentleman to re- sent any impertinence on the part of a guest, kept his temper admirably. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that he longed to kick the fellow; and sodid I. That we were not alone in entertaining such sentiments was made evident to me by the tightened lips and lowered brows of the country gentlemen who formed the ma- jority of the assemblage. While we were leaving the room, one of these, a spare, gray-bearded individual, whom I subsequently discovered to be Colonel Corbin, the M. F. H., told me how glad he had been to hear | that the duke was a hunting as well as a shooting man. ‘In the old duke’s time,” said he, “that beggar Paul Gascoigne had things all his own way, and the consequence was that we never drew these coverts ex- cept for form’s sake. I wish to Heaven we hadn't got him at Lavenham; but it’s something that he doesn’t rule the roast hereabouts any more.” GComicboo cS (E(o) m