Forgetting orders, he tip-toed across to Tilda's elbow.
Mr.James Gavel, proprietor of Imperial Steam Roundabouts--as well as of half a dozen side-shows, including a Fat Lady and a Try-your-Strength machine--was a small man with a purplish nose and a temper kept irritable by alcohol; and to-day the Fates had conspired to rub that temper on the raw.

He swore aloud, and partly believed, that ever since coming to Henley-in-Arden he was bewitched.
He had come at the instance, and upon the guarantee, of Sir Elphinstone Breward, Baronet, C.B., K.C.V.O., a local landowner, who, happening to visit Warwick on County Council business, which in its turn happened to coincide with a fair day, had been greatly struck by the title "Imperial" painted over Mr.Gavel's show, and with soldierly promptness had engaged the whole outfit--Roundabouts, Fat Lady and all--for his forthcoming Primrose Fete.
If beside his addiction to alcohol Mr.Gavel had a weakness, it was the equally British one of worshipping a title.

Flattered by the honest baronet's invitation, he had met it almost more than half-way; and had dispatched six of his shabbiest horses to Birmingham to be repainted for the fete, and labelled "Kitchener," "Bobs," "Cecil Rhodes," "Doctor Jim," "Our Joe," and "Strathcona"-- names (as he observed) altogether more up to date than the "Black Prince," "Brown Bess," "Saladin," and others they superseded.
Respect for his patron had further prompted Mr.Gavel, on the morning of the fete, to don a furred overcoat, and to swear off drink for the day.
This abstinence, laudable in itself, disastrously affected his temper, and brought him before noon into wordy conflict with his engineer.
The quarrel, suppressed for the time, flamed out afresh in the afternoon, and, unfortunately, at a moment when Sir Elphinstone, as chairman, was introducing the star orator from London.

Opprobrious words had reached the ears of the company gathered on the platform, and Sir Elphinstone had interrupted his remarks about Bucking Up and Thinking Imperially to send a policeman through the crowd with instructions to stop that damned brawling.
If the great Napoleon may be forgiven for losing his temper when at five in the afternoon from the slope of La Belle Alliance he watched the Prussians breaking through the opposite woods, while Grouchy yet tarried, let it be pleaded in excuse for Mr.Gavel that ever since eleven a.m.he had been awaiting the arrival of his six newly-painted horses.

The Birmingham decorator had pledged himself to deliver them early at Preston Bagot, and Mr.Gavel knew him for a man of his word.
He had made arrangements for their prompt conveyance to the field.
He did not doubt, but he was undeniably anxious.
Imagine, then, his feelings when at four o'clock or a little later a wagon--the wagon of his hiring--rolled into the enclosure bringing one horse only, and in place of the others a pile of tent-cloths and theatrical boxes, on which sat and smiled Mr.and Mrs.Mortimer, his professional rivals.
He had been drinking ginger-ale all day, and in copious draughts.
It must be confessed that he lost his temper woefully, and so vociferously that Sir Elphinstone this time descended from the platform, and strode across the meadow to demand what the devil he meant by it.
Nor was even this the last drop in the cup of Mr.Gavel's bitterness; for the baronet, struck by Mr.Mortimer's appearance and genteel address, at once invited him to set up his tent and save the situation so desperately compromised.
Sam Bossom, perceiving that the wagon stood on ground well adapted for pitching a tent, cheerfully proceeded to unload.