“‘What is good for a bootless bene?’” quoted Claverton. “Never mind, Allen, don’t you let them chaff you.”
Naylor was an inveterate joker. When he and Armitage got together the same room would hardly hold them, and when the two got Allen between them, then, Heaven help Allen. Now this is precisely what happened, for at that moment the dinner-bell rang, and all adjourned to the festive board, when, as luck would have it, the unfortunate youth found himself—partly owing to that curious practice which is, or was, so often found in frontier houses, of all the men hanging together on one side of the table, leaving the other to the fair sex—in the neighbourhood of his tormentors; but he was a good-natured fellow, and took chaff very equably.
“I say,” began Armitage, “here’s a riddle—a regular Sunday one.”
“Is there? Roll it up this way,” said Claverton, from the other end of the table, where he was seated between Mrs Naylor and Ethel, for he resolutely defied the dividing custom above mentioned.
“Here you are, then. Why is Allen like Moses?” asked Armitage.
“Oh, villainous!” laughed Claverton. “Don’t anybody attempt it. I really think you might trot out something a little more original, Armitage.”
Of course, every one then and there tried hard to solve the conundrum, and, of course, half of them gave it up, and, of course, the reply came even as was to be expected: “Because he was drawn out of the water.”
“Oh-h!” groaned the whole party; while the object of the aqueous jest sat and grinned placidly, and made play with his knife and fork as though he were the perpetrator of it instead of its butt.
“I say, Allen,” put in Naylor, on the other side, “has that shooting match between you and Hicks come off yet?”
“What are the conditions?” asked Armitage.