"
MARGOT: "All right. If you will let me drive you away from lunch
in my phaeton, I will show you the Gladstone picture."
ARTHUR WALTER: "Are you serious? Do you know them well enough?"
MARGOT (nodding confidently): "Yes, yes, don't you fret!"
After lunch I drove him to 40 Grosvenor Square and, when I let
myself in with my latch-key, he guessed who I was, but any
interest he might have felt in this discovery was swamped by what
followed.
I opened the library door. Mr. Gladstone was sitting talking to my
parents under his own portrait. After the introduction he
conversed with interest and courtesy to my new relation about the
Times newspaper, its founder and its great editor, Delane.
What I really enjoyed most in London was riding in the Row. I
bought a beautiful hack for myself at Tattersalls, 15.2, bright
bay with black points and so well-balanced that if I had ridden it
with my face to its tail I should hardly have known the
difference. I called it Tatts; it was bold as a lion, vain as a
peacock and extremely moody. One day, when I was mounted to ride
in the Row, my papa kept me waiting so long at the door of 40
Grosvenor Square that I thought I would ride Tatts into the front
hall and give him a call; it only meant going up one step from the
pavement to the porch and another through the double doors held
open by the footman. Unluckily, after a somewhat cautious approach
by Tatts up the last step into the marble hall, he caught his
reflection in a mirror.
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