"Oh, I'm dumb! How do you propose to set about the task?"
"'Tis what I want to know, Tom."
"And I'm to teach you?"
Philip hesitated.
"Is it perhaps—a thing I can best learn alone?" he asked, surprisingly diffident.
"What is it exactly you want to learn?"
"To become a gentleman. Have I not said it?"
"Odd rot, what are ye now?"
Philip's lips curled.
"I have it on the best authority, Tom, that I am a clumsy, witless clodhopper."