“Awful,” said I. “S’pose slangy women are awfully beastly.”
“They’re outrées,” said Mary. “Besides, men like it.”
“Don’t think they know what slang is,” said I. “S’pose it’s the same as the split infinitive—sort o’ thing that everybody likes to jolly well jaw about and don’t know what it is.”
“My dear Ricky,” said Mary sternly. Her eye fairly flashed with the Higher Culture, therefore I hastened to dismiss a subject on which she had such strong opinions.
“I met Laura Trentham yesterday, at the Hickory match, you know,” said I guiltily.
“Hadn’t we better begin lunch?” said Mary. “Travelling’s made me so hungry.”
It was well for Mary that her patience had no limits, for during that meal I consumed incredible quantities of this invaluable article. However, I felt perhaps a thought more cheerful for the energy and colour of my language. But Mary’s last word was:
“Ricky, I’m so sorry that Laura Trentham does talk slang.”
I lost no time in seeking the open air. Indoors I breathed with difficulty, and was, moreover, ridiculously restless. I wandered aimlessly about the fields of sunshine, without noting in the least the direction that I took. I meandered across blistering meadows to the neighbouring village of Nowhere-in-Particular. A singularly disordered mind was my one companion. And such was its condition that I neither heeded my direction nor the landmarks by the way. Therefore, when in the course of two hours’ rambling it suddenly occurred to me that it would be as well to observe where I was, and set my face for home, I should not have been very surprised to find that I had strolled off the map of England. Where was I? There was a low hedge directly ahead. Beyond that I could indistinctly see, trees being intermingled with them, glass-houses, out-houses, and an ivy-grown, ancient manor-house. Whose place was this? Next instant I shook with hollow laughter at myself. It was Hickory Rectory, Miss Grace’s home. This was really too preposterous. The ivy-grown arrangement just in front was Hickory Rectory for all that. And the family were still at home, and apparently engaged in their principal vocation. For even as I stood girding at my own absurdity, a voice came from the other side the hedge to this effect: “Grace, if you will keep covering the sticks every time with your confounded skirt, you’ll be out petticoat before.”
“Oh, shall I!” said the audacious person thus addressed. “If you can’t bowl me, you’d better bowl for catches and get me caught. Put Toddles on. He might get me collared in the long-field like anything.”