"Dinner be hanged!" cried Sir Percy angrily.
"Your Excellency must give the acids all night to work," said Antonio.
"Yes, your Excellency really must," added young Crowberry. "Perhaps your Excellency has forgotten that the great Carthaginian Hannibal likewise employed an acid—namely vinegar—to make rocks friable, during his famous crossing of the Alps, as is narrated by the historian Livy in his twenty-first book. I know the passage well, having had to copy it out twenty times at school for putting pepper in the usher's pipe."
"Shut up!" snapped his indignant father. But the youth was not abashed.
"If Hannibal left his puddles of vinegar out all night," he said, "I, for one, cannot be a party to your Excellency's doing differently. I'm off."
He moved away. Antonio followed. Mr. Crowberry senior, glad of any excuse to get back punctually for dinner, hurried in their train. Sir Percy gaped after them in deep disgust. Then he flung down his chisel upon the pavement and strode out after the others.
"At eleven o'clock to-night," whispered young Crowberry in Antonio's ear.
"At eight o'clock to-morrow morning," said Antonio in a loud voice.
He went his way and they went theirs.