“Oh, damn your scientific hair-splitting! Don’t you know you’re insulting my father’s memory?”
Dredge stared again, turning his spectacles thoughtfully from one of us to the other.
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Then you’d better sit down. If you don’t see at once it’ll take some time to make you.”
Archie burst into an ironic laugh.
“I rather think it will!” he conceded.
“Sit down, Archie,” I said, setting the example; and he obeyed, with a gesture that made his consent a protest.
Dredge seemed to notice nothing beyond the fact that his visitors were seated. He reached for his pipe, and filled it with the care which the habit of delicate manipulations gave to all the motions of his long, knotty hands.
“It’s about the lectures?” he said.
Archie’s answer was a deep scornful breath.
“You’ve only been back a week, so you’ve only heard one, I suppose?”