"How often have I begged you, sir, not to whistle during official hours? It is impossible for me to write my minutes while you're whistling."
"Write your minutes!" said Mr. Pringle. "Sir, we have the authority of A. Tennyson, Esquire, the Poet of the Age, if my honourable friend in the Isle of Wight will so permit me to call him, for saying that
'Lightlier move the minutes fledged with music.'
Though that even my whistling could make your minutes move lightly, with due respect to Alfred, I doubt."
"Mr. Kinchenton," cried Mr. Dibb, now a dirty white with rage, "I must request you, as head of this room, to call upon Mr. Pringle not to forget himself."
"My dear sir," said Pringle, "there's no one I think of so much."
"George," said Mr. Kinchenton quietly, "pray be quiet!"
"Certainly, Padre; I'm dumb! Thank Heaven and the Early Closing Association, to-day's a half holiday, and we cut it at two."
"Ah, to be sure!" said Kinchenton, anxious to atone for even the slight show of authority which his previous words might have suggested; "there are grand doings this afternoon at the Eyres', at Hampstead. I'm going to take my Percy there. Athletic sports, running, leaping, and all the rest of it."
"Ha! ha!" said Pringle; "at the Eyres', eh?