"You should have come to me," said Mrs Bosenna. "I could have told you all about Education, especially the sort that ought to be given to labourers' children; and it's astonishin' to me the way some people will talk on matters they know nothing about. My late husband made a study of the question, having been fined five shillin' and costs, the year before he married me, just for withdrawing a dozen children from school to pick his apples for him. As luck would have it, one of them fell off a tree and broke his leg, and that gave the Board an excuse to take the matter up. My husband argued it out with the Bench. 'The children like it,' he said, 'for it keeps 'em out of doors, and provides 'em with healthy exercise. If Education sets a boy against climbing for apples, why then,' says he, speaking up boldly, 'with your Worships' leave, Education must be something clean against Nature, as I always thought it was. And the parents like it, for the coppers it brings in. And the farmer gets his apples saved. If that's so,' says he, 'here's a transaction that benefits everybody concerned, instead of which the Board goes out of its way to harass me for it.' The chairman, Sir Felix, owned he was right, too. 'Bosenna,' says he, 'I can't answer you if I would. Nothing grieves me more, sitting here, than having to administer the law as I find it. But, as things are, I can't let you off with less.'"
This anecdote, and the close arguments used by Mr Bosenna, plunged Cai in thought; and for the remainder of the meal he sat abstracted, joining by fits and starts in the conversation, now and then raising his eyes to a portrait of the deceased farmer, an enlarged and highly-tinted photograph, which gazed down on him from the opposite wall. The gaze was obstinate, brow-beating, as though it challenged Cai to find a flaw in the defence: and Cai, although dimly aware of a fallacy somewhere, could not meet the challenge. He lowered his eyes again to his plate. He found himself wondering if, in any future circumstances, Mrs Bosenna would consent to hang the portrait in another apartment. . . .
Into so deep an abstraction it cast him, indeed, that when Mrs Bosenna arose to leave them to their wine and tobacco, he scrambled to his feet a good three seconds too late. . . . 'Bias (usually lethargic in his movements) was already at the door, holding it open for her.
What was worse—'Bias having closed the door upon her, returned to his seat with a slight but insufferable air of patronage, and—passed the decanter of wine to him!
"You'll find it pretty good," said 'Bias, dropping into his chair and heavily crossing his legs.
Cai swallowed down a sudden tide of rage. "After you!" said he with affected carelessness. "I've tasted it afore."
"Well—if you won't—" 'Bias stretched out a slow arm, filled his glass, and set down the decanter beside his own dessert plate. "You'll find those apples pretty good," he went on, sipping the wine, "though not up to the Cox's Orange Pippins or the Blenheim Oranges that come along later." He smacked his lips. "You'd better try this port wine. Maybe 'tis a different quality to what you tasted when here by yourself."
"Thank 'ee," answered Cai. "I said 'after you.'"
"Oh?" 'Bias pushed the decanter. "You weren't very tactful just now, were you?" he asked after a pause. "Is it the same wine?"
"O' course it is. . . . When wasn't I tactful?"