"It is hard work," said Eames. "If you're under the line, they make a great row about it, send for you, and look at you as though you'd been robbing the bank; but they think nothing of keeping you till five."
"But how long do you have for lunch and reading the papers?" said the earl.
"Not ten minutes. We take a paper among twenty of us for half the day. That's exactly nine minutes to each; and as for lunch, we only have a biscuit dipped in ink."
"Dipped in ink!" said the squire.
"It comes to that, for you have to be writing while you munch it."
"I hear all about you," said the earl; "Sir Raffle Buffle is an old crony of mine."
"I don't suppose he ever heard my name as yet," said Johnny. "But do you really know him well, Lord De Guest?"
"Haven't seen him these thirty years; but I did know him."
"We call him old Huffle Scuffle."
"Huffle Scuffle! Ha, ha, ha! He always was Huffle Scuffle; a noisy, pretentious, empty-headed fellow. But I oughtn't to say so before you, young man. Come, we'll go into the drawing-room."