"It was about."
"It never came from me," said Edwin.
Hilda broke in eagerly:
"He was invited to stand. But he wouldn't. I thought he ought to. I begged him to. But no, he wouldn't. And did you know he refused a J.P.ship too?"
"Oh!" mumbled Edwin. "That sort o' thing's not my line."
"Oh, isn't it!" Ingpen exclaimed. "Then whose line is it?"
"Look at all the rotters in the Council!" said Edwin.
"All the more reason why you should be on it!"
"Well, I've got no time," Edwin finished gloomily and uneasily.
Ingpen paused, tapping his teeth with his finger, before proceeding, in a judicial, thoughtful manner which in recent years he had been developing: