“Have I?” replied the latter leisurely, turning round with a half-soaped visage, and razor arrested in mid-air. “But, Phil, it’s rather lucky you didn’t swoop down in such hurricane method upon a more nervous man than yours truly, or it’s wildly hunting for sticking plaster he’d be at this moment. And now, for my enlightenment, who’s we?”
“Oh, the Ottleys and the Wyatts and one or two more. We want to start early, cross the lake by steamer and get as far up that valley on the other side as we can.”
“To Novèl? Yes, and then?”
“Why then we are going to charter a boat and row back in the cool of the evening.”
“Not a bad scheme. Who do you say are going, beside the inseparables?”
“One of the Miss Milnes—the pretty one—and that fellow Scott.”
“Scott, the devil-dodger?”
“Yes. The Ottleys have asked him. I can’t think why, for he’s a rank ‘outsider.’”
“Most of the ‘shepherds’ appointed to administer ‘Dearly beloved brethren’ to their countrywomen in this otherwise favoured land are, my dear chap. But it’s all the better for you. He can take the two Ottley nymphs off your hands while you offer latria to the fair Inkermann—no Alma—I beg your pardon.”
“But—but hang it, that’s just what the beggar won’t do,” blurted Phil in desperation. “Fact is he’s always in the way, and really it’s contemptible, you know; but what’s to be done with a cad like that, who ignores a snub that another fellow would knock you down for—or try to? You’ll come along, old man, won’t you?”