"Don't hurry matters."
"It can't take very long, can it? The governor means to settle it out of hand; he almost said as much."
"But then there's the lady. Perhaps she——"
"Between ourselves, I fancy he thinks he's waited long enough."
I had the same impression, but my mind had wandered back to another point.
"When did you see Octon?" I asked.
"I trotted Aunt Sarah down to that place—what's it called?—where the Institute offices are. Aunt Sarah's got very keen on the Institute; she must mean to queer it somehow, I think! Well, Octon was there, talking to the clerk. She cut him dead, of course—marched by the pair of them with her head up. Powers ran after her, and I addressed an observation to Octon. You remember that little spar we had?"
"At the Flower Show? Yes, I remember."
"I was a bit fresh then," he confessed candidly, "and perhaps he wasn't so far wrong to sit on me. But the beggar's got a rough way of doing it. Well, it didn't seem civil to say nothing, so I said, 'I haven't had that thrashing yet, and I'm getting a bit too big for it, like you, Mr. Octon.'"
"Was that your idea of something civil?" I felt constrained to ask.