"Well, sir. I don't know, sir. Haven't had you here before, I think."
"Oh, you're very clever, you Londoners. I don't doubt you can all see through a brick wall. Yes, I'm from the country--but I'm beginning to know my way about the town too. Ever bin on a steamboat to Rodhaven?"
"Rodhaven? No, sir."
Then Dale told the waiter about the heaths and downs and woods that lie between Rodhaven and Old Manninglea.
"Prettiest part of the world that I know of," he said proudly. "You spend your next holiday there. Take the four-horse sharrybank from Rodhaven pier--and when you get to the Roebuck at Rodchurch, you get off of the vehicle and ask for the Postmaster."
"Yes, sir?"
"He won't eat you," and Dale laughed with intense enjoyment of his humor. "He's not a bad chap really, though his neighbors say he's a bit of a Tartar. I give you my word he'll receive you, decently, and stand you dinner into the bargain. I know he will--and for why? Because I am that gentleman myself."
He could not resist the pleasure of rounding off his sentence with the grand word "Gentleman," and he was gratified by the waiter's meekly obsequious reception of the word.
"Thank you, sir. Much obliged, sir."
When leaving, he gave the waiter a generous tip.
To-day his walk through the gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that he looked at delighted him--the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses of fine ladies mincingly walking on the common public pavement; the stolid grandeur of huge policemen, and the infinite audacity of small newspaper boys; the life, the color, the noise. It seemed as if the busy city and the pleasure-loving West-end alike unfolded themselves as a panorama especially arranged for one's amusement; and his satisfaction was so great that it mutely expressed itself in words which he would have been quite willing to shout aloud. Such as: "Bravo, London! You aren't a bad little place when one gets to know you. There's more in you than meets the eye, first view."
And because he was so happy himself, he could sympathize with the happiness of everybody else. He was glad that the rich people were so rich and the poor people so contented; he admired a young swell for buying flowers from a woman with a shawl over her head; he mused on all the honest, well-paid toil that had gone to the raising of the grapes and peaches at a Piccadilly fruiterer's. "Live, and let live"--that's a good motto all the world over. When he saw babies in perambulators, he would have liked to kiss them. When he saw an elderly man with a pretty young woman, he wanted to nudge him and say jocosely, "You're in luck, old chap, aren't you?" When couples of boy and girl lovers went whispering by, he smiled sentimentally. "That's right. You can't begin too soon. Never mind what Ma says. If you like him, stick to him, lassie."