"You've to thank yourself for that, sir. Not me."
"No, zounds, you did very well. I profess I was proud of you, Harry."
"Then I have to envy you."
Colonel Boyce laughed. "You play that game well, you know. But sure, you need not play it all the time. No, but I never knew you could put on such an air, Harry. You carried it off à merveille. My lord was a whipper-snapper to you. I allow you were a thought too free of your wit. It's a young man's fault. But in the main you were admirable."
"You make me uneasy," Harry said. "I hoped that I had quarrelled with you."
"Oh Lud, Harry, why be so bitter? You have won, and sure you can afford to be civil. You have beat me and broken as pretty a plot as ever I knew. Why the devil should you snarl at me?"
They were now turning into Long Acre and the coming storm had already brought darkness. Harry stopped and freed himself from his father's arm. "If you please, we'll have no more of this. I've no will to make an enemy of you. But if you seek to be friends, enemies we must be."
"Why then? Harry, you are not so mad as to declare Jacobite now? It's a lost cause, boy. There's not a thing in it but noble hole-and-corner work and not a guinea for your pains. You—"
"Aye, now we have it!" Harry laughed. "You want to be in my secrets. Sir, I'm obliged to you, and by your leave I'll discontinue your company."
"I swear I wish you nothing but well," his father cried.