Castle Gay by John Buchan

The westering sun was lighting up the homely furniture of Mrs Catterick's best room -- the sheepskins on the floor, the framed photographs decorated with strings of curlews' eggs on the walls -- when Dougal and Jaikie entered the presence of the great man. Mr Craw was not at the moment an impressive figure. The schoolmaster's son of Kilmaclavers had been so long habituated to the attentions of an assiduous valet that he had found some difficulty in making his own toilet. His scanty hair was in disorder, and his spruce blue suit had attracted a good deal of whitewash from the walls of his narrow bedroom. Also he had lost what novelists call his poise. He sat in a horsehair-covered arm- chair drawn up at a table, and strove to look as if he had command of the situation, but his eye was uncertain and his fingers drummed nervously.

"This is Mr Galt, sir," said Dougal, adding, "of St Mark's College, Cambridge."