“I don’t want him,” cried that gentleman.
“But I think I understood him to say that you had asked him down again.”
“Not I,” cried Claud. “He’d say anything.”
“Indeed! I’m sorry to hear this. In fact, I half expected to find him down here, and if I had I was going to ask you, James, if you thought it would be possible for you to take him as—as—well, what shall I say?—a sort of farm pupil.”
“I?” cried Wilton, in dismay. “What! Keep him here?”
“Well—er—yes. He has such a penchant for country life, and I thought he would be extremely useful as a sort of overlooker, or bailiff, while learning to be a gentleman-farmer.”
“You keep him at his desk, and make a lawyer of him,” said Wilton sourly. “He’ll be able to get a living then, and not have to be always borrowing to make both ends meet. There’s nothing to be made out of farming.”
“Do you hear this, Kate, my dear?” said Garstang, with a meaning smile. “It is quite proverbial how the British farmer complains.”
“You try farming then, and you’ll see.”
“Why not?” said Garstang, laughingly, while his host writhed in his seat. “It always seems to me to be a delightful life in the country, with horses to ride, and hunting, shooting and fishing.”