"Nobody knows me I tell you: I've addressed meetings there on Free Trade and all that sort of thing, but I haven't a single acquaintance, except my wretched sister-in-law and her annoying daughter—and what the dooce does Shakespeare say about Tanneur?"
"A pardonable interposition," murmured Mr. Rake noisily. "It is 'Pompey' in the text—you see how admirably it fits the Duke:
"And do you now strew flowers In his (the Duke's) way?
Who comes in triumph over Pompey's (that's you) blood?"
"I—will—not—be—referred—to—as—Pompey," said Sir Harry deliberately and slowly, and thumped the table at each word, "I am not going to give that brute a nickname to hang round my neck."
"And look here, Rake," broke in Hal impatiently, "what the devil's the good of you thinking that any muck you write is likely to shift this Duke fellow. I'll bet if it comes to writing he could write your head off. An' there's nothing funny about the Duke fellow coming in triumph over the governor's blood. Its a beastly tactless thing to say."
Mr. Rake looked at him unfavourably.
"Mr. Hal," he said, in his best editorial manner, "you must allow a journalist and a gentleman——"
"Journalist my grandmother," said Hal, without reverence, "this is a council of war—don't let us raise any debatable question. We've got to think out a way of making this Duke pack up his traps. It doesn't matter what sort of way, so long as it's an effective way. The governor doesn't want him there, and I don't want him—he's taken a low down advantage of me an' probably messed up my whole life——" He tangented abruptly (the accent on the penultimate.)
"Now whilst you two chaps have been arguing," Hal went on, "I've thought out a dozen schemes. We might cut off his water——"
"The lore," said Mr. Smith becoming cheerful as the discussion took a turn into his province, "the lore doesn't allow anybody but the water-rates to turn——"