Read "The Emerald Catherine the Great" by Hilaire Belloc online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was that same Friday night, and about 9.55 by the clock. The men had just come in from the dining-room. They had been warned that the housekeeper, Mrs. Bankes (fear nothing -- you will never meet her again) had commandeered the drawing-room. They were not allowed to go back there, for even now the belated serfs were spreading, under Mrs. Bankes' eye, large dingy cloths over the chairs and tables against the early sweep of the morrow.
The Home Secretary had no choice but to shepherd them into the somewhat forlorn, hardly used West Room. A good fire had been ordered. He trusted humbly in God that the parrot Attaboy, securely covered in its black cage cloth, could utter no unseemly Attaboy cry. If it did -- well, if it did, Tommy must laugh. After all, it was his fault if he had pulled a horse.