Part 5 (2/2)
”What was it?”
Aymer cut the leaves of the book he was trying to read rather viciously.
”Taking care of me,” he said shortly.
Christopher got up on his knees and stared.
”Hadn't you got Vespasian then?”
”Good heavens, Christopher, are you a walking inquisition? My father gave up his appointment--if you must know, because of my----” he stopped, and went on doggedly, ”of my accident. I wasn't particularly happy when I found I had to stay on a sofa all the rest of my life, and he had to teach me not to make an idiot of myself. Now you know all about it and need not bother anyone else with questions.”
Christopher thought he knew very little about it, but he had learnt what he set out to know and was moreover now aware that the subject was distasteful to Aymer, so he politely changed it. ”Robert's brother has got some very nice guinea-pigs,” he said thoughtfully.
”Who is Robert?”
”Robert is the under footman. I forgot you don't know him.”
Christopher recollected with momentary embarra.s.sment Aymer's inaccessibility to the general domestic staff.
”He wants to find a home for them,” he added hastily; ”he doesn't mind where, so long as it's a happy home.”
Aymer guarded a smile. Christopher was already notorious for ingenious methods of getting what he wanted.
”It would be a pity for them to be ill-treated, of course,” he agreed gravely.
Christopher shuffled across the floor to the side of the big sofa.
”It's rather a happy home here, you know,” he remarked suggestively, touching Aymer's arm tentatively with one finger.
”I am glad you think so. Do you consider the atmosphere equally suitable for guinea-pigs?”
”I should like them.” He rubbed his cheek caressingly on Aymer's hand.
”May I, Caesar?”
”Not to keep in your bedroom as you did the bantam.”
”But in the garden--or yard. _Please_, dear Caesar.”
”You ridiculous baby, yes. If you make a house for them yourself.”
Christopher flew off in a transport of joy to consult with Vespasian, who, from mere tolerance of his beloved master's last ”fad,” had become the most ardent if unemotional partisan of the same ”fad.”
It was Vespasian who had provided Christopher with more clothes than he deemed it possible for one mortal boy to wear, who taught him how to put them on, and struggled with him figuratively and literally over the collar question. Vespasian's taste running to a wide margin of immaculate white closely fastened, while Christopher had a predilection for a free and open expanse of neck.
”Look at Mr. Aymer,” pointed out the great general's successor sternly. ”You never see him with even a turn-down collar, and he lying on his back all the time, when most gentlemen would consider their own comfort.”
Christopher, hot, angry and uncomfortable, wondered if Vespasian had insisted on the wearing of those instruments of torture, or if Caesar really preferred it.
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