“I know my Keats, sir. I had to plough with his heifer though—use my Lempriere, I mean!”
“Good heavens!” said the baronet, who knew as little of Keats as any Lap.—“I wish I had been content to take you with all your ugliness, and bring you up myself, instead of marrying Lot's widow!”
Richard fancied he preferred the bringing up he had had, but he said nothing. Indeed he could make nothing of the whole business. How was it that, if sir Wilton had done his mother no wrong, his mother was the wife of John Tuke? He was bewildered.
“You wouldn't like to learn Greek, then?” said his father.
“Yes, sir; indeed I should!”
“Why don't you say so then? I never saw such a block! I say you shall learn Greek!—Why do you stand there looking like a dead oyster?”
“I beg your pardon, sir! May I have the other cheque?”
“What other cheque?”
“The cheque there for my brother and sister, sir,” answered Richard, pointing to it where the baronet had laid it, on the other side of him.
“Brother and sister!”