‘I do so wish your brother had not left the army!’
‘You have one son of Mars.’
Her eyes took the colonel up to cast him down: he was not the antidote. She said to him: ‘Luciani’s voice wears better than her figure.’
The colonel replied: ‘I remember,’ and corrected himself, ‘at Eton, in jackets: she was not so particularly slim; never knew how to dress. You beat Italians there! She moved one as a youngster.’
‘Eton boys are so susceptible!’
‘Why, hulloa, don’t I remember her coming out!—and do you mean to tell me,’ Mr. Beaves Urmsing brutally addressed the colonel, ‘that you were at Eton when... why, what age do you give the poor woman, then!’ He bellowed, ‘Eh?’ as it were a bull crowing.
The colonel retreated to one of his defensive corners. ‘I am not aware that I meant to tell you anything.’
Mr. Beaves Urmsing turned square-breasted on Fenellan: ‘Fellow’s a born donkey!’
‘And the mother lived?’ said Fenellan.
Mr. Beaves Urmsing puffed with wrath at the fellow.