“Time for tiffin is it, Percy?” said Sir Luke, glancing at his watch. “You see we old fogies haven’t got your fine healthy jackass-and-a-bundle-of-greens appetite. We must have overlooked it.”
“I don’t agree with you at all, Canterby,” laughed the Canon. “I’ll answer for it. I feel uncommonly like beefsteaks, or anything that’s going. And what have you been doing with yourself, Percy?”
“Biking. Got ten miles out beyond Passmore since eleven o’clock. Oh, bye-the-bye, Canon, I saw the Bishop in Passmore. He wanted you badly.”
“Percy, speak the truth, sir,” returned the Canon, with a solemn twinkle in his eyes. “You said the Bishop wanted me badly? And—his Lordship happens to be away!”
“Every word I said is solemn fact,” replied Percival. “I saw the Bishop in Passmore, but I didn’t say to-day though. And there’s no denying he did want you badly. Eh, Canon?”
“You’re a disrespectful rascal, chaffing your seniors, sir, and if I were twenty years younger, I’d put on the gloves and take it out of you.”
“Come along in to tiffin, Canon, and take it out of that,” rejoined Percival with his light-hearted laugh, dropping his hand affectionately on to the old man’s shoulder. And the trio adjourned to the dining-room.
Jerningham Lodge, Sir Luke Canterby’s comfortable, not to say luxurious establishment, was a roomy old house, standing within a walled park of about a hundred and fifty acres. Old, without being ancient, it was susceptible of being brought up to fin-de-siècle ideas of comfort, and the gardens and shrubberies were extensive and well kept. It had come into his possession a good many years before, and soon after that he was left a childless widower. Thus it came about that these two nephews of his had found their home here.
The elder of the two, however, did not turn out entirely to the satisfaction of his uncle.
“Hilary is such a confounded young rake,” the latter used to say. “He’ll get himself into a most infernal mess one of these days.”