"What a commanding figure he is, I noticed him whenever I drove up to your door. So he is a Mahomedan! He certainly contrasts favourably with my Hindu, who has got a cringing air I don't like." "There's no cringing in my major-domo! He once rather affronted me years ago. A lady, rather an old campaigner, happened to be dining with us, and thought Moideen had spilt wine on her dress. Pointing it out to the man, she said witheringly: 'You ape!' For once Moideen, who was then in the dew of his youth, forgot his manners. Beating his breast and with flashing eyes he shouted: 'I not one ape, I one man!' It was an unpleasant moment, I really feared the furious Mussulman might do the lady some injury. But age and experience have sobered him. He has developed into the most perfect of servants. I've no doubt he caters well for himself as well as for me, as Mrs. Samptor sometimes attempts to hint, but I suddenly become stone deaf. There are some truths one can't afford to listen to. 'Where ignorance is bliss, _et cetera_!'" "Don't you think there's a good deal of fallacy in that couplet, Mr. Worsley? It's like pulling the blinds down when one's garden is being ravaged by a black goat--like the culprit Mrs. Samptor was chasing this afternoon." "Just a case in point! For my part, I much prefer having the blinds down to scrambling up a tree to fight with a goat as that little lady did. Yet I admire her pluck! Well, here we are, Cheveril, in my den where I keep the blinds down metaphorically as well as literally as much as possible," said the Collector, as he walked up the broad grey steps of his bungalow which looked a more cheerful abode when brilliantly lit than in the daytime. "Moideen knows I'm a lover of light. He illuminates for me every night as if I were a light-keeper." The dingy dining-room was transformed, lit up by tall candelabra; the candles all shaded by glass. The table glittered with exquisitely kept old English silver plate, flowers artistically arranged, glancing cut-glass, spotless English damask; "no country tablecloths my master having," Moideen was wont to boast to the other boys of the station. "I making list to best shops in London, no bazaar bobbery here." But not all the handsome table appointments, the perfect cooking, the faultless waiting of Moideen and his satellites could banish from the young Assistant's mind the thought that his chief was a weary, disenchanted man, and all the talk of the evening only served to deepen that impression.