"If you don't know, Mr. Mason, I am not going to tell you. I feel for you, I do upon my word. I feel for you, and I pity you." Mr. Dockwrath as he thus expressed his commiseration was sitting with his high chair tilted back, with his knees against the edge of his desk, with his hat almost down upon his nose as he looked at his visitors from under it, and he amused himself by cutting up a quill pen into small pieces with his penknife. It was not pleasant to be pitied by such a man as that, and so Peregrine Orme conceived.
"Sir, that is nonsense," said Lucius. "I require no pity from you or from any man."
"I don't suppose there is one in all Hamworth that does not feel for you," said Dockwrath.
"He means to be impudent," said Peregrine. "You had better come to the point with him at once."
"No, I don't mean to be impudent, young gentleman. A man may speak his own mind in his own house I suppose without any impudence. You wouldn't stand cap in hand to me if I were to go down to you at The Cleeve."
"I have come here to ask of you," said Lucius, "whether it be true that you are spreading these reports about the town with reference to Lady Mason. If you are a man you will tell me the truth."
"Well; I rather think I am a man."
"It is necessary that Lady Mason should be protected from such infamous falsehoods, and it may be necessary to bring the matter into a court of law—"
"You may be quite easy about that, Mr. Mason. It will be necessary."
"As it may be necessary, I wish to know whether you will acknowledge that these reports have come from you?"