It was so friendly as to be cheering.
“He seems a decent old bird,” said Martin, emerging a few minutes later.
“I thought you said he was your cousin?”
“So he is. You see I’m Irish, and so is he; and in Ireland pretty nearly everybody who is anybody is related to everybody else.” He plunged into a lengthy demonstration of the relationships of the Southern aristocracy, with warnings as to the gulfs that separated the Martins from the Martyns, and the Plunketts from the Plunkets, rambling away through a world of high-breeding and penury in which all the inhabitants called each other by their Christian names, and spent their lives in hunting, point-to-point racing, and elaborate practical jokes. A new world to Edwin.
They strolled down Sackville Row together, and cutting through the Arcades came out into the wide thoroughfare of Queen Street that had been driven through an area of slums in honour of Victoria’s first jubilee.
“By the way, what’s your school?” said Denis Martin.
“St. Luke’s.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I don’t suppose you would, in Ireland.”
“Oh, I didn’t go to school in Ireland. Nobody does. I was at Marlborough. Is St. Luke’s one of those soccer schools?”