"You are Feverel's friend?"
Ripton had an eye for lords. An ambrosial footman, standing at the open door of Lord Mountfalcon's house, and a gentleman standing on the door-step, told him that he was addressed by that nobleman. He was requested to step into the house. When they were alone, Lord Mountfalcon, slightly ruffled, said: "Feverel has insulted me grossly. I must meet him, of course. It's a piece of infernal folly!—I suppose he is not quite mad?"
Ripton's only definite answer was a gasping iteration of "My lord."
My lord resumed: "I am perfectly guiltless of offending him, as far as I know. In fact, I had a friendship for him. Is he liable to fits of this sort of thing?"
Not yet at conversation-point, Ripton stammered: "Fits, my lord?"
"Ah!" went the other, eying Ripton in lordly cognizant style. "You know nothing of this business, perhaps!"
Ripton said he did not.
"Have you any influence with him?"
"Not much, my lord. Only now and then—a little."
"You are not in the Army?"