“Weep!” exclaimed Wilfred, “every time one sees a fellow screwy in the street.”
“Perhaps the angels do,” murmured Clement.
“Come, Master Wilfred, you have expressed your opinions sufficiently to-night,” said the General. “Suppose you and Fergus walk home together. A nasty low place as ever I saw. I have a mind to tell the Mayor about it.”
Gerald said—
“Is not that making yourself very unpopular?”
“That is no great matter,” said the General, rather surprised.
“I should have thought it better to refine the people’s tastes than to thwart their present ones.”
“The improper must be stopped before the taste for the proper can be promoted,” said Clement.
“With all the opposition and ill-blood that you cause?” said Gerald. “Why, if I were an errand-boy, the suppression would send me direct to the circus. Would it not do the same by you, Uncle Lance?”
“Discouragement might, prohibition would prevent wholly, and I should be thankful,” said Lance.