‘You never hunted in the shires, Gaston, so come,’ said downright Edith.
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Edith. I did, several seasons while you were still at school.’
‘Miss Prioleau never went to school, I think,’ put in Herbert, and she turned on him with a bright smile.
‘O, do you remember that day! I never was so bothered, I think. French is certainly the most difficult and detestable of tongues.’
‘So I always thought,’ Herbert said.
‘You speak French, Mr. Larkins?’ asked the aide-de-camp, rather impertinently.
‘After a fashion, that of Deadham school. Pray do you?’
‘Were you at Deadham?’ went on Captain Mountcharles, rather shirking the question, and seeming to imply that a man who had been in the ranks had no right to any education at all.
‘Ye were at more schools than that, I take it, Larkins,’ said Dr. M‘Cosh; ‘I saw you in one, and a hot ’un, where you were the head and dux of the class.’