“It 's not the worse for that!” said Tom, whose pluck was by this time considerably assisted by the claret.
“Well, it's an unfair way, at all events, and destroys real sport”
“Real sport is filling your basket.”
“No, no; there's no real sport in doing anything that's unfair,—anything that's un——” He stopped short, and swallowed off a glass of wine to cover his confusion.
“That's all mighty fine for you, who can not only pay for a license, but you 're just as sure to be invited here, there, and everywhere there's game to be killed. But think of me, that never snaps a cap, never throws a line, but he knows it's worse than robbing a hen-roost, and often, maybe, just as fond of it as yourself!”
Whether it was that, coming after Darby's mawkish and servile agreement with everything, this rugged nature seemed more palatable, I cannot say; but so it was, Con-yers felt pleasure in talking to this rough unpolished creature, and hearing his opinions in turn. Had there been in Tom Dill's manner the slightest shade of any pretence, was there any element of that which, for want of a better word, we call “snobbery,” Conyers would not have endured him for a moment, but Tom was perfectly devoid of this vulgarity. He was often coarse in his remarks, his expressions were rarely measured by any rule of good manners; but it was easy to see that he never intended offence, nor did he so much as suspect that he could give that weight to any opinion which he uttered to make it of moment.
Besides these points in Tom's favor, there was another, which also led Conyers to converse with him. There is some very subtle self-flattery in the condescension of one well to do in all the gifts of fortune associating, in an assumed equality, with some poor fellow to whom fate has assigned the shady side of the highway. Scarcely a subject can be touched without suggesting something for self-gratulation; every comparison, every contrast is in his favor, and Conyers, without being more of a puppy than the majority of his order, constantly felt how immeasurably above all his guest's views of his life and the world were his own,—not alone that he was more moderate in language and less prone to attribute evil, but with a finer sense of honor and a wider feeling of liberality.
When Tom at last, with some shame, remembered that he had forgotten all about the real object of his mission, and had never so much as alluded to the leeches, Conyers only laughed and said, “Never mind them to-night. Come back to-morrow and put them on; and mind,—come to breakfast at ten or eleven o'clock.”
“What am I to say to my father?”
“Say it was a whim of mine, which it is. You are quite ready to do this matter now. I see it; but I say no. Is n't that enough?”