“Hmf!” growled Cashel. “They’d be more dangerous if I could give every man that is robbed of half what he earns twelve lessons—in science.”
“So you can. Publish your lessons. ‘Twelve lectures on political economy, by Cashel Byron.’ I will help you to publish them, if you wish.”
“Bless your innocence!” said Cashel: “the sort of political economy I teach can’t be learned from a book.”
“You have become an enigma again. But yours is not the creed of a simpleton. You are playing with me—revealing your wisdom from beneath a veil of infantile guilelessness. I have no more to say.”
“May I be shot if I understand you! I never pretended to be guileless. Come: is it because I raised a laugh against your cousin that you’re so spiteful?”
Lydia looked earnestly and doubtfully at him; and he instinctively put his head back, as if it were in danger. “You do not understand, then?” she said. “I will test the genuineness of your stupidity by an appeal to your obedience.”
“Stupidity! Go on.”
“But will you obey me, if I lay a command upon you?”
“I will go through fire and water for you.”
Lydia blushed faintly, and paused to wonder at the novel sensation before she resumed. “You had better not apologize to my cousin: partly because you would only make matters worse; chiefly because he does not deserve it. But you must make this speech to Mrs. Hoskyn when you are going: ‘I am very sorry I forgot myself’—”