"So Duggy made you a second lieutenant!" said the Marquis. "Sound chap! So, so! I'll write a letter about you to Starrow, who is a peg above Duggy. Must say I liked the way that you knocked that Hun down. The vicar and I were puzzled. What was it, a straight lead with the right?"
"No, an upper cut, like this!" interrupted the vicar, giving another exhibition of how it was done.
"Just as I said from the start!" declared His Lordship. "Pleased the old chap in the frame in the dining-room, wouldn't it?"
CHAPTER XXV
HENRIETTE WAITS
At dinner Phil was seated again under the English ancestor, only to find that this did not mean an escape from ancestors, as he was facing the American. The vicar had had the photograph of the statue at Longfield framed, and on the opposite side of the room the man of Massachusetts seeking the blood of British redcoats was charging toward the man of Hampshire, who, with uptilted chin, was defying all comers.
"At breakfast some morning you may find the table overturned, chairs broken and the dining-room all gory," Phil said.
"Really!" gasped Mrs. Sanford. She was so serious about the ancestors that at first she took him literally.
"The American is better dressed for such an affair," Phil continued, "but I fancy that the Briton did his fighting in shirt-sleeves, too. He was in that ornate get-up only when he posed for his portrait."