"And we must behave ourselves, eh?" interrupted Lord Charles. "Come now, old Perry, don't pretend to be above your company. You don't like poverty any more than I do. Sit down and make yourself comfortable, and touch that bell for another glass—two more glasses, if Mr. Howard will join us."
Mr. Perry touched the bell, as requested, and said with an agreeable smile: "You will have your little joke, Lord Charles. You know very well that all self-indulgence is extremely distasteful to me; but in this place I do not wish to put myself on a pedestal."
"You put yourself in that chair, old Perry," said Lord Charles, indicating one only a little less deep and easy than his own, "and don't be a humbug. Well, Mr. Howard, this must be an agreeable change to you from the Highlands. You live on porridge and Plato there, I believe. You did well to put yourself into the hands of old Perry. He'll do you top notch—nobody knows how to better than he—and send you home to spread the gospel of high living and plain thinking among the benighted toilers with whom you have been brought up."
"I hope," said Mr. Perry, "that Mr. Howard will go back with no such lesson. If you are going to try to persuade him that my efforts to uplift the wealthy classes are a cloak for vicious desires of my own, Lord Charles, I shall not shrink from holding you up to him as an example of what to avoid."
Lord Charles hoisted himself up in his seat to pour out three glasses of the liqueur. "Fire away, old Perry," he said. "Tell him my awful story. But get outside this first; it will do you a world of good."
Mr. Perry got outside it, and began:
"Lord Charles is a younger son of the late Duke of Trumps, a man respected and beloved for his many virtues."
"A fine old boy, my governor," Lord Charles agreed, "and the best hedger and ditcher to be found in Upsidonia. But he liked his glass of beer, old Perry; don't forget that. Don't forget that he liked his glass of beer."
"I have no doubt that his Grace permitted himself moderate relaxation after the labours of the day were over," said Mr. Perry. "But it would have shocked him deeply to know that a son of his would ever sink to the level of glorying in a life of ease and sloth."