Not
the house-door. It was the parlour-door. I saw him walk up to the glass,
and walk back from the glass. And when he'd got up to the glass he bowed,
he did, and he went back'ards just so."
Doubtless the presence of a lady was the active agent that prevented
Crummins from doubling his body entirely, and giving more than a rapid
indication of the posture of Mr. Tinman in his retreat before the glass.
But it was a glimpse of broad burlesque, and though it was received with
becoming sobriety by the men in the carpenter's shop, Annette plucked at
her father's arm.
She could not get him to depart. That picture of his old schoolmate
Martin Tinman practicing before a chiwal glass to present himself at the
palace in his Court suit, seemed to stupefy his Australian intelligence.
"What right has he got to go to Court?" Mr. Van Diemen Smith inquired,
like the foreigner he had become through exile.
"Mr. Tinman's bailiff of the town," said Crickledon.
"And what was his objection to that glass I smashed?"
"He's rather an irritable gentleman," Crickledon murmured, and turned to
Crummins.
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