"Then you needn't be nervous about going to stay with half one, because he's only a suffragan."
"You shouldn't speak of your uncle in that way, Nina," my mother said. "It makes no difference whether he is an archbishop or a curate, but I won't have him spoken of as if he is a fraction."
"Godfrey used to hate him, at any rate," she replied, simply to create a diversion.
"I am sure he didn't," and my mother's eyes turned questioningly upon me.
"I did rather bar him at one time until he was decent in the summer, he used to think himself so funny," I explained.
"I wish you would talk English," my father said. "Dinner is already a quarter of an hour late, I am going into the dining-room." He marched off quickly and Nina began to laugh, but I think she must also have been a little ashamed of herself.
"I am a scapegoat for everybody," I said to her; "for you, the cook, and the gardener's boy, whose whistle is always mistaken for mine."
"Never mind," she answered, "you don't look very depressed."
"It isn't fair, all the same; you don't play the game," and as my mother had already gone into the dining-room to sit rebukefully at a foodless table I followed her.
These solemn waitings, which did not happen unfrequently, were comical to me, and since my father never could understand why Nina and I were amused at them, he had generally forgotten his original grievance before dinner began.