He stared hard at Burton. The man was old in a rather theatrical way; he clumped about exactly like the faithful retainer in the old-fashioned melodrama; if you addressed him he would turn round, put one hand to his ear, to leer at you, and say grotesquely: "Sir?" He was the terror of all the housemaids, the pet of all the Junior boys, and a sort of communal butler and valet to the prefects. And, beyond all doubt, he was one of the sights of Lavery's. For the moment Speed detested him. "I say, Burton." The turn, the hand to ear, the leer, and the grotesque interrogative: "Sir?" "How long have you been at Millstead?" "Fifty-one year, sir, come next July. I started when I was fourteen year old, sir, peelin' potaties in the old kitchins that used to be underneath Milner's. I come to Lavery's when I was twenty-four as underporter. I remember old Mr. Hardacre that wuz 'ousemaster before Mr. Lavery, Sir. Mr. Lavery was 'ousemaster for thirty-eight year, sir, an' a very great friend of mine. He came to see me only larst Toosday, sir, a-knockin' at the pantry door just like an old pal o' mine might. He wuz wantin' to know 'ow the old place was gettin' on." Speed's glance hardened. He could imagine Lavery and Burton having a malicious conversation about himself. Burton went on, grinning: "He was arskin' after you, Mr. Speed. I told 'im you wuz away spendin' the Christmas with Sir Charles and Lady Speed. An' I told him you wuz doin' very well an' bein' very popular, if you'll pard'n the liberty I took." "Oh, certainly," said Speed, rather coldly. When Burton had gone out he poked up the fire and pondered. Now that he was back at Millstead he wished he had stayed longer in Beachings Over. Millstead was absolutely a dead place in vacation time, and in the Christmas vacation nothing more dreary and uniformly depressing had ever come within his experience. Dr. and Mrs. Ervine, so Potter informed him, had gone to town for a few days and would not be back until after the New Year. None of the other housemasters was in residence. The huge empty footer pitches, hardly convalescent after the frays of the past term, were being marked off for hockey by the groundsman; the chapel was undergoing a slothful scrubbing by a platoon of chattering charwomen; the music-rooms were closed; the school organ was in the hands of the repairers; the clock in the chapel belfry had stopped, apparently because it was nobody's business to wind it up during vacation-time.