"Oh, yes;—he is away on leave. I do not doubt that it was he."
"Why should he not be in Cumberland,—when, as it happens, his father is land-steward or something of that sort to my uncle Persiflage?"
"Because I did not know that he had any connection with Cumberland. Why not Cumberland, or Westmoreland, or Northumberland, you may say? Why not?—or Yorkshire, or Lincolnshire, or Norfolk? I certainly did not suppose that a Post Office clerk out on his holidays would be found hunting in any county."
"You have never heard of his flea-bitten horse?"
"Not a word. I didn't know that he had ever sat upon a horse. And now will you let me know why you have called him my friend?"
"Is he not so?"
"By no means."
"Does he not sit at the same desk with you?"
"Certainly he does."
"I think I should be friends with a man if I sat at the same desk with him."