"No; the Strand," says Mr. Browne, to whom shame is unknown, "if you mean Jerry."
"Dicky employs Jerry because his name is Browne," says Roger. "He's a hanger-on of the family, and is popularly supposed to be a poor relation, a sort of country cousin. Dicky proudly supports him in spite or public opinion. It is very noble of him."
"The governor sent me to him when I was a young chap—for punishment, I think," says Dicky, mildly, "and I don't like to give him up now. He is such a fetching old thing, and so conversational, and takes such an interest in my nether limbs."
"Who are you talking of in such laudatory terms?" asks Dulce, curiously, raising her head at this moment.
"Of Jerry—my tailor," says Dicky, confidentially.
"Ah! A good man, but—er—tiresome," says Julia, vaguely, with a cleverly suppressed yawn; she is evidently under the impression that they are discussing Jeremy Taylor, not the gentleman in the Strand.
"Is he good?" asks Dicky, somewhat at sea. "A capital fellow to make trousers, I know, but for his morality I can't vouch."
"I am speaking of the divine, Jeremy Taylor," says Julia, very justly shocked at what she believes to be levity on the part of Dicky. "He didn't make trousers, he only made maxims!"
"Poor soul!" says Mr. Browne, with heartfelt pity in his tone, to whom Jeremy Taylor is a revelation, and a sad one. "Did he die of 'em?"
Of this frivolous remark Julia deigns to take no notice. And, indeed, they are all too accustomed to Mr. Browne's eccentricities of style to spend time trying to unravel them.