"Have you quarrelled with your mash?" asked Toby, leaving allegory for common sense.
"My mash! Toby, you are growing vulgar. I did not quarrel with Kaituna, but we had words."
"Several hundred, I should think. What was the row?"
"How coarse you are!" said the refined Archie. "There was no row. I spoke of myself in the third person."
"When there are only two people, and those are of the opposite sex, you shouldn't introduce a third person. Well, what did you say?"
"I asked her whether she would accept a poor man if he proposed to her."
"And she said?"
"She said 'no.'"
Archie's face was tragic in its deep gloom, so Toby comforted him.
"Old boy!"