The master's shyness, resembling a deer's, kept the pair almost entirely out of England, and, on their continuous travels, the servant invariably stood between that sensitive diffidence and the world.

Leek saw every one who had to be seen, and did everything that involved personal contacts.

And, being a bad habit, he had, of course, grown on Priam Farll, and thus, year after year, for a quarter of a century, Farll's shyness, with his riches and his glory, had increased.

Happily Leek was never ill.

That is to say, he never had been ill, until this day of their sudden incognito arrival in London for a brief sojourn.