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A short-sighted man whose pince-nez have gone astray at the very moment when vultures are gnawing at his bosom seldom guides his steps carefully. Anyone watching Lord Emsworth totter blindly across the terrace would have foreseen that he would shortly collide with something, the only point open to speculation being with what he would collide. This proved to be a small boy with ginger hair and freckles who emerged abruptly from the shrubbery carrying an airgun.
'Coo!' said the small boy. 'Sorry, grandpapa.'
Lord Emsworth recovered his pince-nez and, having adjusted them on the old spot, glared balefully.
'George! Why the dooce don't you look where you're going?'
'Sorry, grandpapa.'
'You might have injured me severely.'
'Sorry, grandpapa.'
'Be more careful another time.'
'Okay, big boy.'
'And don't call me "big boy".'
'Right ho, grandpapa. I say, said George, shelving the topic, 'who's the bird talking to Aunt Connie?'
He pointed - a vulgarism which a good tutor would have corrected - and Lord Emsworth, following the finger, winced as his eye rested once more upon Rupert Baxter. The secretary - already Lord Emsworth had mentally abandoned the qualifying 'ex' - was gazing out over the rolling parkland, and it seemed to his lordship that his gaze was proprietorial. Rupert Baxter, flashing his spectacles over the grounds of Blandings Castle, wore - or so it appeared to Lord Emsworth - the smug air of some ruthless monarch of old surveying conquered territory.
'That's Mr Baxter,' he replied.
'Looks a bit of a blister,' said George critically.
The expression was new to Lord Emsworth, but he recognized it at once as the ideal description of Rupert Baxter. His heart warmed to the little fellow, and he might have quite easily at this moment have given him sixpence.
'Do you think so?' he said lovingly.
'What's he doing here?'
Lord Emsworth felt a pang. It seemed brutal to dash the sunshine from the life of this admirable boy. Yet somebody had got to tell him.
'He is going to be your tutor.'
'Tutor?'
The word was a cry of agony forced from the depths of the boy's soul. A stunned sense that all the fundamental decencies of life were being outraged had swept over George. His voice was thick with emotion.
'Tutor?' he cried. 'Tew-tor? Ter-YEWtor? In the middle of the summer holidays? What have I got to have a tutor for in the middle of the summer holidays? I do call this a bit off. I mean, in the middle of the summer holidays. Why do I want a tutor? I mean to say, in the middle of....'
He would have spoken at greater length, for he had much to say on the subject, but at this point Lady Constance's voice, musical but imperious, interrupted his flow of speech.
'Gee-orge.'
'Coo! Right in the middle -'
'Come here, George. I want you to meet Mr Baxter.'
'Coo!' muttered the stricken child again and, frowning darkly, slouched across the terrace. Lord Emsworth proceeded to the library, a tender pity in his heart for this boy who by his crisp summing-up of Rupert Baxter had revealed himself so kindred a spirit. He knew just how George felt. It was always not easy to get anything into Lord Emsworth's head, but he had grasped the substance of his grandson's complaint unerringly. George, about to have a tutor in the middle of summer holidays, did not want one.
Sighing a little, Lord Emsworth reached the library and found his book.
...PGW
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