‘That’s why some men take to drink,’ he observed. ‘They’re driven silly by some ill-conditioned woman like your grandmother. Nag, nag, nag: it was Alice first, then you, then me. Does she come to eat her dinner with us on Sunday just to insult us all, do you think?’
Hugh considered this as he helped himself.
‘I think that’s part of her reason,’ he said. ‘She also wants to get a good dinner for nothing.’
‘I expect that’s about it. She may call me a tradesman if she likes, who has been a fishmonger, for that’s quite true. But she shan’t call me such a rotten bad man of business as to send out stale goods. She wouldn’t be getting her hundred pounds regular as clock-work at Christmas time, if I had been that sort of a man.’
‘You answered her very properly, I thought,’ remarked Hugh.
‘Of course I did. I didn’t want to do it: never in my life have I wanted to speak like that to any woman, let alone your mother’s mother, but she gave me no option. Now I’m off to my books.’
He rose.
‘It would be rather a good thing if you went into my mother’s room and had your cup of coffee there,’ Hugh said, ‘it would show you paid no heed to her rude speeches.’
‘Maybe it would, but she might treat me to some more, and I’ve no inclination for them. Stale fish, indeed!’