Some one might step on it." "Thank you, sir." The valet departed as noiselessly as he had entered.
"Really," mused Thomas, "there's a rum chap.

I don't like him around.
He gives me the what-d'-y'-call-it." They needed an extra man at the table that night, so Thomas came down.
He found himself between two jolly young women, opposite Kitty who divided her time between Lord Monckton and a young millionaire who, rumor bruited it, was very attentive to Killigrew's daughter.

Still, Thomas enjoyed himself.

Nobody seemed to mind that he was only a clerk in the house.

The simpleton did not realize that he was a personage to these people; an English private secretary, quite a social stroke on the part of the Killigrews.
He gathered odd bits of news of what was going on among the summer colonists.