And, by Jove, it seemed to me he _ought_ to _feel_ embarrassed, for the very rummest thing yet was this crazy infatuation for this infernal chauffeur. It was pitiful--oh, disgusting, if you ask _me_--and the more so because it was something she did not share. I _knew_ she didn't, you know! No, it was plain enough, dash it, that between her father and this mucker of a chauffeur, my poor darling was being crowded to the what's-its-name. _This_ was what she had meant--had hinted at--and, by Jove, I was ready to wager anything on it; eager to put up all I was worth, you know! Didn't know, dash it, how much I _was_ worth Went down in Wall Street one day and asked old Morley, my man of affairs, but forgot what he said. Never could remember afterward whether it was one million or ten and always hated to ask again. Truth was he had stared at me so and seemed so oddly surprised, I just worked off some jolly apologetic rubbish and got out. Pugsley thought I must have violated some rotten, silly law of commercial ethics--that sort of thing, you know; declared that his attorney had had the dashed impertinence once to ask him about some investments, so he got another man and gave him a power of what's-its-name. Never was bothered now, he said, by checks or reports or any boring distractions of that sort; _this_ man just kept him supplied with money, and once in a while he scrawled his name on something--all he had to do. Devilish simple, you see, but then Pugsley is so ingenious, so--oh, _clever_, you know. "H'm!" coughed the judge, "Er--h'm!" And I stopped snapping the cover of my cigarette case, thinking he was about to say something, but he did not look up. By Jove, how I wished that he were _really_ busy, so I might slip out without danger of offending him! But I was afraid to chance it--did so want to rub him right, don't you know, on account of Frances. Knew he was still feeling a bit plucked over his slip of the tongue--showed plainly he was bothered, you know; you could tell by his puckered brows and the way he kept clearing his throat. So meantime, knowing that the best thing was to appear unconscious--just give him time, you know--I fell carelessly to jingling some coins in my pocket and tapping my foot upon the hardwood, as I hummed a devilish neat little air from _La Juive_ that I almost knew by heart: "_Qu'il, l'apprenne de vous? Helas, je vous implore, benissez mon epoux_--" By Jove, I had just got that far, when he shook his head with a kind of snort, threw down his pen, and got to his feet, facing me with a sickly smile. "I am going to ask you to excuse me, my dear Lightnut"--came right out frankly like that, you know! "But the fact is--" he opened and shut his watch--nervously, you know--"I have just realized how--"