"I'm not sure of it at all. If you wanted another to-morrow you'd ask for him if you thought you could get him."
"I call that very uncivil, Sir Thomas,—and very unkind."
"Bother!" said Sir Thomas. "It is no good in being kind to a fellow like you. Did you ever hear what the cabman did who had a sovereign given to him for driving a mile. He asked the fool who gave it him to make it a guinea. I am the fool, and, by George, you are the cabman!" With this Sir Thomas turned into the house by a small door, leaving his son-in-law to wander round to the front by himself.
"Your father has insulted me horribly," he said to his wife, whom he found up in her bed-room.
"What is the matter now, Septimus?"
"That little mare of his, which I have no doubt has come down half a score of times before, fell with me and cut her knees."
"That's Phœbe," said Augusta. "She was his favourite."
"It's a kind of thing that might happen to anyone, and no gentleman thinks of mentioning it. He said such things to me that upon my word I don't think I can stop in the house any longer."
"Oh, yes, you will," said the wife.
"Of course, it is a difference coming from one's father-in-law. It's almost the same as from one's father."