“Not to her face!” said Gerald.
“We are not quite brutes, whatever you may think us, my boy,” said the General good-humouredly.
“Well,” said Gerald, in the same tone, “how could I tell how it might be when the Philistines conspired to hunt down a poor foreign widow trying to pick up a scanty livelihood?”
“If the poor foreign widow had been content without corrupting the boys,” said Clement, “she would have been let alone.”
“It was not for corrupting the boys. That was done—or not done—by my amiable cousin Ted. What harm did her ‘baccy do to living soul?”
“It is a risky thing, to say the least of it, for a living soul to defraud the revenue,” said Clement.
“Of which probably she never heard.”
“She must have seen the terms of her licence,” said the General.
“Aye, a way of increasing the revenue by burthens on the chief solace of poverty,” said Gerald hotly.
“You’ll come to your senses by and by, young man,” imperturbably answered the General.