“Why shouldn’t Master Lionel write to her?”
“Tchah! The boy doesn’t write too often to me. I don’t like this, Ben, I tell you I don’t like it.”
“Miss Hamlin is a very sweet young lady.”
“Daughter of a Rad. Never knew that when I gave him the livin’. And who are the Hamlins, I ask you, spelt with an ‘i’?”
“Mrs. Hamlin was a sweet lady, too.”
“Sugary adjectives. You are damnably sentimental, Ben, and, and—a—saccharine. Good word that! Where was I? Your confounded interruptions always put me out of my stride. Yes, yes, I’m not a snob but Mrs. Hamlin, if my memory serves me, was the daughter of an auctioneer. The girl is hairy at the heel, b’ Jove.”
“She isn’t.”
“You have the impudence to contradict me?”
“I thought we were speaking as man to man, as friends.”
“So we are, so we are. But it was a slap in the face all the same. And, damn it, sir, any pretty girl can twist you round her finger. Keep your temper, Ben! Between you all my morning has been wrecked. I shall go and hearten myself up with a squint at the new litter of pigs—fifteen little darlings. That old sow does her duty, b’ Jove!”