"Friendship and the partridges."
"There was nothing else, then?"
"Indeed there was. There was a widow with two very nice daughters, living, not exactly in the same house, but on the same grounds."
"Oh, indeed. That makes such a difference; doesn't it? You are not a man to bear much privation on the score of partridges, nor a great deal, I imagine, for friendship. But when you talk of pretty girls—"
"It makes a difference, doesn't it?"
"A very great difference. I think I have heard of that Mrs. Dale before. And so her girls are nice?"
"Very nice indeed."
"Play croquet, I suppose, and eat syllabub on the lawn? But, really, didn't you get very tired of it?"
"Oh dear, no. I was happy as the day was long."
"Going about with a crook, I suppose?"