"You do not believe in your own doctrines," he remarked. "You would not part with a tenth part of your brains for all my muscle."
The Duke paused to think.
"It is not only the muscle," he said. "It is this appearance of splendid physical perfection. You have but to show yourself in a London drawing-room, and you will establish a cult. Do you want to be worshipped, friend Andrew—to wear a laurel crown, and have beautiful ladies kneeling at your feet?"
"Chuck it!" Andrew remarked good humouredly. "I didn't come here to be chaffed. I came here on a serious mission."
The Duke nodded.
"It must indeed have been serious," he said, "for you to have had your hair cut and your beard trimmed, and to have attired yourself in the garments of civilization. You are the last man whom I should have expected to have seen in a coat which might have been cut by Poole, if it wasn't, and wearing patent boots."
"Jolly uncomfortable they are," Andrew remarked, looking at them. "However, I didn't want to be turned away from your doors, and I still have a few friends in town whom I daren't disgrace. Honestly, Berners, I came up to ask you something."
The Duke was sympathetic but silent.
"Well?" he remarked encouragingly.
"The fact is," Andrew continued, "I wonder whether you could help me to get something to do. We have decided to let the Red Hall, Cecil and I. The rents have gone down to nothing, and altogether things are pretty bad with us. I don't know that I'm good for anything. I don't see, to tell you the truth, exactly what place there is in the world that I could fill. Nevertheless, I want to do something. I love the villager's life, but after all there are other things to be considered. I don't want to become quite a clod."