“Then you mustn’t ask for any more, Eddy dear,” said mamma, and she removed the decanter stopper, and began to pour out a very thin thread of wine, when the young monkey gave the bottom of the decanter a tilt, and the glass was nearly filled.
“Eddy, for shame!” said mamma. “What will Miss Grayson think?”
“I don’t care,” said the boy, seizing the glass, drinking some of the rich wine, and then turning to the thick slice of pine-apple his mother had cut.
The doctor gave his daughter another droll look, but she preserved her calm.
“To continue,” said the doctor: “I say a boy’s a boy, and I don’t care whose he is, or where he came from; he is so much plastic clay, and you can make of him what you please.”
“You can’t make him a gentleman,” said Sir James.
“I beg your pardon.”
“And I beg yours. If the boy has not got breed in him—gentle blood—you can never make him a gentleman.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the doctor again. “I maintain, sir, that it is all a matter of education or training, and that you could make a gentleman’s son a labourer, or a labourer’s son a gentleman.”
“And are you going to put that in your book, doctor?”