"Shall I turn on the moving-picture machine, sir?" suggested the negro
deferentially. "There's a good one-reel comedy in this machine to-day,
or I can put in a serious piece in a moment, if you prefer it.
"No, thanks," answered John, politely but firmly. He was enjoying his
bath too much to desire any distraction. But distraction came. In a
moment he was listening intently to the sound of flutes from just
outside, flutes dripping a melody that was like a waterfall, cool and
green as the room itself, accompanying a frothy piccolo, in play more
fragile than the lace of suds that covered and charmed him.
After a cold salt-water bracer and a cold fresh finish, he stepped out
and into a fleecy robe, and upon a couch covered with the same
material he was rubbed with oil, alcohol, and spice. Later he sat in a
voluptuous while he was shaved and his hair was trimmed.
"Mr. Percy is waiting in your sitting-room," said the negro, when
these operations were finished. "My name is Gygsum, Mr. Unger, sir. I
am to see to Mr. Unger every morning."
John walked out into the brisk sunshine of his living-room, where he
found breakfast waiting for him and Percy, gorgeous in white kid
knickerbockers, smoking in an easy chair.
4
This is a story of the Washington family as Percy sketched it for John
during breakfast.
The father of the present Mr. Washington had been a Virginian, a
direct descendant of George Washington, and Lord Baltimore.
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