“Well, Repton,” said Rawlins, as soon as they were left thus to themselves, “are you pondering over it still? I see that you can't get it out of your head.”
“It is quite true, I cannot,” said Repton. “To summon us all down here,—to bring us some fifty miles away from our accustomed beat, for a trumpery affair like this, is totally beyond me. Had it been an election time, I should probably have understood it.”
“How so?” cried Niel, in the shrill piercing voice peculiar to him, and which imparted to him, even in society, an air of querulous irritability.
“On the principle that Bob Mahon always puts a thoroughbred horse in his gig when he drives over to a country race. He's always ready for a match with what he jocularly calls 'the old screw I 'm driving this minute;' so, Niel, I thought that the retainer for the ejectment might have turned out to be a special fee for the election.”
“And he 'd have given them a speech, and a rare good one, too, I promise you,” said Rawlins; “and even if he had not time to speak it, the county paper would have had it all printed and corrected from his own hand, with all the appropriate interruption of 'vociferous cheering,' and the places where the orator was obliged to pause, from the wild tumult of acclamation that surrounded him.”
“Which all resolves itself into this,” screamed Niel,—“that some men's after-grass is better than other men's meadows.”
“Mine has fallen to the scythe many a day ago,” said Rawlins, plaintively; “but I remember glorious times and glorious fellows. It was, indeed, worth something to say, 'Vixissi cum illis.'”
“There 's another still better, Rawlins,” cried Repton, joyously, “which is to have survived them!”
“Very true,” cried Niel. “I 'd always plead a demurrer to any notice to quit; for, take it all in all, this life has many enjoyments.”
“Such as Attorney-Generalships, Masters of the Rolls, and such like,” said Repton.