“Why should we not all go together?” inquired Frere; “the more the merrier, particularly if it should come to a shindy.”
“What’s the nature of the entertainment?” asked Leicester.
“Tell them, De Grandeville,” said Frere, looking hard at his cousin, as he slightly emphasised the De.
“Ar—well, you won’t let it go further, I’m sure, but there’s a meeting to be held to-night at a kind of Mechanics’ Institute, a place I and one or two other influential men have had our eyes on for some time past, where they promulgate very unsound opinions; and we have been only waiting our opportunity to give the thing a check, and show them that the landed gentry are united in their determination not to tolerate sedition, or in fact anything of the sort; and I have had a hint from a very sure quarter (I walked straight from Downing Street here) that to-night they are to muster in force—a regular showoff; so a party of us are going to be present and watch the proceedings, and if there should be seditious language used, we shall make a decided demonstration, let them feel the power they are arraying themselves against, and the utter madness of provoking such an unequal struggle.”
“Then we have a very fair chance of a row, I should hope,” interposed Lewis eagerly, his eyes sparkling with excitement; “ ’twill put us in mind of old sixth-form days, eh, Frere?”
“Leicester, what say you? Do you mind dirtying your kid gloves in the good cause?” asked Frere.
“There is no time to put on an old coat, I suppose?” was the reply. “A broken head I don’t mind occasionally, it gives one a new sensation; but to sacrifice good clothes verges too closely on the wantonly extravagant to suit either my pocket or my principles.”
“I will lend you one of mine,” returned Frere.
“Heaven forfend!” was the horrified rejoinder. “I have too much regard for the feelings of my family, let alone those of my tailor, to dream of such a thing for a minute. Only suppose anything were to happen to me, just see how it would read in the papers: ‘The body of the unfortunate deceased was enveloped in a threadbare garment of mysterious fashion; in the enormous pockets which undermined its voluminous skirts was discovered, amongst other curiosities, the leg-bone of a fossil Iguanodon.’”
“Gently there!” cried Frere; “how some people are given to exaggeration! Because I happened accidentally one day to pull out two of the vertebræ of——”