Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis on the title, which smelt to him of commerce. Sir William invited him to dine and sleep at his house that night.
"You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who knew her and her husband in India," said the baronet.
"The deuce I shall," said the squire, and accepted maliciously.
Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled subserviency to those flustering teabodies. This was understood; so, when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled to conversation; beginning upon gout. Sir William had recently had a touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave the squire some fraternal sentiment. From that, they fell to talking politics, and differed. The breach was healed by a divergence to their sons. The squire knew his own to be a scamp.
"You'll never do anything with him," he said.
"I don't think I shall," Sir William admitted.
"Didn't I tell you so?"
"You did. But, the point is, what will you do with him?"
"Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses. That's all he's fit for."
The superior complacency of Sir William's smile caught the squire's attention.