THE ENGLISH INVADE The granddaughter of Jack Wyckholme, attended by two maids, her husband and his valet, a clerk from the chambers of Bosworth, Newnes & Grapewin, a red cocker, seventeen trunks and a cartload of late novels, which she had been too busy to read at home, was the first of the bewildered legatees to set foot upon the island of Japat.

A rather sultry, boresome voyage across the Arabian Sea in a most unhappy steamer which called at Japat on its way to Sidney, depressed her spirits to some extent but not irretrievably.
She was very pretty, very smart and delightfully arrogant after a manner of her own.

To begin with, Lady Agnes could see no sensible reason why she should be compelled to abandon a very promising autumn and winter at home, to say nothing of the following season, for the sake of protecting what was rightfully her own against the impudent claims of an unheard-of American.
She complacently informed her solicitors that it was all rubbish; they could arrange, if they would, without forcing her to take this abominable step.

Upon reflection, however, and after Mr.Bosworth had pointed out the risk to her, she was ready enough to take the step, although still insisting that it was abominable.
Mr.Saunders was the polite but excessively middle-class clerk who went out to keep the legal strings untangled for them.

He was soon to discover that his duties were even more comprehensive.
It was he who saw to it that the luggage was transferred to the lighter which came out to the steamer when she dropped anchor off the town of Aratat; it was he who counted the pieces and haggled with the boatmen; it was he who carried off the hand luggage when the native dock boys refused to engage in the work; it was he who unfortunately dropped a suitcase upon the hallowed tail of the red cocker, an accident which ever afterward gave him a tenacity of grip that no man could understand; it was he who made all of the inquiries, did all of the necessary swearing, and came last in the procession which wended its indignant way up the long slope to the chateau on the mountain side.
If Lady Deppingham expected a royal welcome from the inhabitants of Japat, she was soon to discover her error.