“I am afraid she gives me a dreadful character, doesn’t she?” he asked.
“If she does you probably deserve it,” I said, severely. “I fancy that I have heard her say that you are exceedingly shiftless and very lazy. You could scarcely deny that, could you?”
“Well, I don’t know,” he answered. “I have walked twenty or thirty miles to-day. That doesn’t sound particularly lazy, does it?”
“On sport or business?” I inquired.
He laughed, and looked down at himself. His clothes were splashed with mud, and a bramble had torn his coat in a fresh place.
“I maintain that it is immaterial,” he declared. “I’ve been out all day, and I haven’t sat down for more than an hour. Therefore I deny the laziness in toto.”
“At any rate,” I continued, “there is another charge against you, which you certainly can’t deny.”
“And that is?”
“Untidiness! We used to have a woman call upon us at Belchester to buy our old clothes. If ever she comes here I shall certainly send her up to Deville Court.”