“That is it, Madam!” responded Jack eagerly, turning to his welcome ally. “I cannot affect singularity—’tis not possible.”
“Of course not,” said Lady Enville, who quite agreed with Jack’s sentiments, as women of her type generally do.
“Thou canst affect honesty, trow,” retorted Rachel.
“Sir,” said Jack, earnestly addressing his father, “I do entreat you, look on this matter in a reasonable fashion.”
“That is it which I would fain do, Jack.”
“Well, Sir,—were I to put my trade-debts before my debts of honour, all whom I know should stamp me as no gentleman. They should reckon me some craftsman’s son that had crept in amongst them peradventure.”
“Good lack!” said his step-mother and aunt together,—the former in dismay, the latter in satire.
“I am willing that any should count me no gentleman, if he find me not one,” answered his father; “but one thing will I never do, and that is, give cause to any man to reckon me a knave.”
“But, Sir, these be nought save a parcel of beggarly craftsmen.”
“Which thou shouldst have been, had it so pleased God,” put in Aunt Rachel.