During the wreck of
Creed's career, which, following on a lengthy illness, had preceded his
salvation by the Westminster Gazette, these two household gods had lain
at the bottom of an old tin trunk, in the possession of the keeper of a
lodging-house, waiting to be bailed out. The "Honorable Bateson" was now
dead, nor had he paid as yet the pounds he had borrowed. Lady Glengower,
too, was in heaven, remembering that she had forgotten all her servants
in her will. He who had served them was still alive, and his first
thought, when he had secured his post on the "Westminister," was to save
enough to rescue them from a dishonourable confinement. It had taken
him six months. He had found them keeping company with three pairs of
woollen drawers; an old but respectable black tail-coat; a plaid cravat;
a Bible; four socks, two of which had toes and two of which had heels;
some darning-cotton and a needle; a pair of elastic-sided boots; a
comb and a sprig of white heather, wrapped up with a little piece of
shaving-soap and two pipe-cleaners in a bit of the Globe newspaper; also
two collars, whose lofty points, separated by gaps of quite two inches,
had been wont to reach their master's gills; the small alarum clock
aforesaid; and a tiepin formed in the likeness of Queen Victoria at the
date of her first Jubilee.
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