Then he turned
and fled to the regions below.
One of the young men, he learned from the talk in the servants' hall,
was Jack Holliday, the youngest son of the railroad magnate; it was
his sister who was engaged to marry the English duke. The other boy
was the heir of a great lumber king from the West, and though he was
only twenty he had got himself involved in a divorce scandal with some
actor people. Who the young ladies were no one seemed to know, but
there were half-whispered remarks about them, the significance of
which was quite lost upon Samuel.
Presently the word came that the party was to stay to dinner. And then
instantly the whole household sprang into activity. Above stairs
everything would move with the smoothness of clockwork; but downstairs
in the servants' quarters it was a serious matter that an elaborate
banquet for seven people had to be got ready in a couple of hours.
Even Samuel was pressed into service at odd jobs--something for which
he was very glad, as it gave him a chance to remain in the midst of
events.
So it happened that he saw Peters emerging from the wine cellar,
followed by a man with a huge basket full of bottles. And this set
Samuel to pondering hard, the while he scraped away at a bowl of
potatoes. It was the one thing which had disconcerted him in the life
of this upper world--the obvious part that drinking played in it.
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