“That? why, the dinner-gong, of course. Just time to have a wash first. We don’t dress down here. That’s what father always says to visitors who bring bobtails and chokers. Bring a bobtail with you?”
“I brought my dress suit.”
“Then, if I were you, I would make it up into a parcel, and send it back to London. What’s your name, did you say?”
“Maxi—Max Blande.”
“To be sure! Max Blande, Esquire, Russell Square, per Macbrayne and Caledonian Railway; and we’ll catch a salmon, or you shall, and send to your father same time. Come on; run. Hi, dogs, then! Bruce, boy! Chevy, Dirk! Come along, Sneeshing! Oh, man, you can’t half run!”
“No,” said Max, panting heavily, and nearly falling over a projecting piece of rock.
“I say, mind! Why, if you fell there, you’d go right down into the sea, and it would be salt water instead of soup.”
Kenneth laughed heartily at his own remark as they ran on, to pause at the steep slope up to the castle, where the dogs stopped short, as if well drilled as to the boundaries they were to pass, while the two lads once more crossed the gloomy ruined quadrangle and entered the house.