“By Jove, Evelyn, it's most annoying about that confounded Shaw chap,” he remarked to his wife as he mounted the broad steps leading to the gallery half an hour later, walking with the primness which suggests pain. Lady Bazelhurst looked up from her book, her fine aristocratic young face clouding with ready belligerence.
“What has he done, Cecil dear?”
“Been fishing on our property again, that's all. Tompkins says he laughed at him when he told him to get off. I say, do you know, I think I 'll have to adopt rough methods with that chap. Hang it all, what right has he to catch our fish?”
“Oh, how I hate that man!” exclaimed her ladyship petulantly.
“But I 've given Tompkins final instructions.”
“And what are they?”
“To throw him in the river next time.”
“Oh, if he only could!” 'rapturously.'
“Could? My dear, Tompkins is an American. He can handle these chaps in their own way. At any rate, I told Tompkins if his nerve failed him at the last minute to come and notify me. I 'll attend to this confounded popinjay!”
“Good for you, Cecil!” called out another young woman from the broad hammock in which she had been dawdling with half-alert ears through the foregoing conversation. “Spoken like a true Briton. What is this popinjay like?”