“To get up a little earlier in the morning when he wants to try his pumping apparatus. But what made you give that start? Don't you know that all I could tell would be some of our old larks, and he wouldn't have thought anything the worse of you on account of them? Hang it all, you don't mean to say you're going into holy orders, that you mind having any of the old times brought back? If you do, I'm afraid that it will be awkward for you if I talk in my ordinary way. I won't bind myself not to tell as many of our larks as chime in with the general conversation. I only object on principle to be pumped.”
“Talk away,” said Oswin spasmodically. “Tell of all our larks. How could I be affected by anything you may tell of them?”
“Bravo! That's what I say. Larks are larks. There was no manslaughter nor murder. No, there was no murder.”
“No, there was no murder,” said Markham.
The other burst into a laugh that startled a Malay in the street below.
“By heavens, from the way you said that one would fancy there had been a murder,” he cried.
Then there was a long pause, which was broken by Markham.
“You still intend to go out to dine with that man you met yesterday?” he said.
“Don't call him a man, Oswin; you wouldn't call a bishop a man, and why call a king one. Yes, I have ordered a horse that is said to know the way across those Flats without a pocket compass.”
“Where did you say the house was?”