"I think he'll be quick to see me when you give him that message." He stared and growled at me a second or two before he went off with an ill grace, leaving me on the steps.

But, as I had expected, he was back almost at once, and beckoning me to enter and follow him.

And follow him I did, past more flunkeys who stared at me as if I had come to steal the silver, and through soft-carpeted passages, to a room into which he led me with small politeness.
"You're to sit down and wait," he said gruffly.

"Sir Gilbert will attend to you presently." He closed the door on me, and I sat down and looked around.

I was in a small room that was filled with books from floor to ceiling--big books and little, in fine leather bindings, and the gilt of their letterings and labels shining in the rays of a tall lamp that stood on a big desk in the centre.