'He's a harmless enthusiast,' said Lydiard. 'He has been reading the article, and has got excited over it.'
'I wish I had the fellow's address.' Beauchamp looked wistfully at Lydiard, but he did not stimulate the generous offer to obtain it for him. Perhaps it was as well to forget the fellow.
'You see the effect of those articles,' he said.
'You see what I mean by unseasonable times,' Lydiard retorted.
'He didn't talk like a tradesman,' Beauchamp mused.
'He may be one, for all that. It's better to class him as an enthusiast.'
'An enthusiast!' Beauchamp stamped: 'for what?'
'For the existing order of things; for his beef and ale; for the titles he is accustomed to read in the papers. You don't study your countrymen.'
'I'd study that fellow, if I had the chance.'
'You would probably find him one of the emptiest, with a rather worse temper than most of them.'