“Oh! Didn’t think of French. One never knows where to have him. What’s gone wrong to-night?”
“I been thinking. It isn’t any particular thing. I ate too much of that fishy stuff at first, like salt frog spawn, and was a bit confused by olives; and—well, I didn’t know which wine was which. Had to say that each time. It puts your talk all wrong. And she wasn’t in evening dress, not like the others. We can’t go on in that style, George—not a proper ad.”
“I’m not sure you were right,” I said, “in having a fly.”
“We got to do it all better,” said my uncle, “we got to do it in Style. Smart business, smart men. She tries to pass it off as humorous”—my aunt pulled a grimace—“it isn’t humorous! See! We’re on the up-grade now, fair and square. We’re going to be big. We aren’t going to be laughed at as Poovenoos, see!”
“Nobody laughed at you,” said my aunt. “Old Bladder!”
“Nobody isn’t going to laugh at me,” said my uncle, glancing at his contours and suddenly sitting up.
My aunt raised her eyebrows slightly, swung her foot, and said nothing.
“We aren’t keeping pace with our own progress, George. We got to. We’re bumping against new people, and they set up to be gentlefolks—etiquette dinners and all the rest of it. They give themselves airs and expect us to be fish-out-of-water. We aren’t going to be. They think we’ve no Style. Well, we give them Style for our advertisements, and we’re going to give ’em Style all through.... You needn’t be born to it to dance well on the wires of the Bond Street tradesmen. See?”
I handed him the cigar-box.
“Runcorn hadn’t cigars like these,” he said, truncating one lovingly. “We beat him at cigars. We’ll beat him all round.”