midday
And he waved his hand in dismissal , and as the three men moved away he buried himself again in the perplexities of the dog-tax . Ten minutes later the deliberations of the Council were disturbed by a loud and persistent rattle , like the whir of a Maxim gun , which proved , on investigation , to arise from the American lawn-mower . The vagrant was propelling it triumphantly across the lawn , and gazing down at it with the same fond pride with which a nursemaid leans over the perambulator to observe her lusty and gurgling charge . The Councillors had departed , Sir Charles was thinking of breakfast , the Maxim-like lawn-mower still irritated the silent hush of midday , when from the waters of the inner harbor there came suddenly the sharp report of a saluting gun and the rush of falling anchor-chains . There was still a week to pass before the mail-steamer should arrive , and H. M. S. Partridge had departed for Nassau . Besides these ships , no other vessel had skirted the buoys of the bay in eight long smiling months . Mr. Clarges , the secretary , with an effort to appear calm , and the orderly , suffocated with the news , entered through separate doors at the same instant .