"Yes;—Plaistow is in Norfolk."
"I suppose you'll leave it now and go into Somersetshire," suggested Captain Aylmer.
"Certainly not. Why should I leave it?"
"I thought, perhaps,—as Belton Castle is now your own—"
"Plaistow Hall is more my own than Belton Castle, if that signifies anything,—which it doesn't." This he said in an angry tone, which, as he became conscious of it, he tried to rectify. "I've a deal of stock and all that sort of thing at Plaistow, and couldn't very well leave it, even if I wished it," he said.
"You've pretty good shooting too, I suppose," said Aylmer.
"As far as partridges go I'll back it against most properties of the same extent in any county."
"I'm too busy a man myself," said the Captain, "to do much at partridges. We think more of pheasants down with us."
"I dare say."
"But a Norfolk man like you is of course keen about birds."