"Clive," said David, who had waited patiently for him to finish his poetical quotation, "you'll come—won't you?"
"Come? Come where?"
"Why, I want to visit the tunnel of the Alban Lake, and it'll take an hour to do it. If we go, we'll lose our dinner. What do you say? You don't think a dinner's the most important thing in the world?"
"Of course not," said Clive. "Besides, we can pick up some scraps when we return, and eat them in the carriage."
"That's right," said David. "Boys," he continued, appealing to
Frank and Bob, "you'd better come."
"What! and lose our dinners?" cried Frank, scornfully. "Catch us at it. No. We require more substantial food than poetry and old ruins. Don't we, Bob?"
"Certainly," said Bob. "For my part poetry and old ruins never were in my line. As for 'Arms and the man' and the 'Sabine farm,' why, all I can say is, I always hated them. I detested Virgil, and Horace, and Cicero, and the whole lot of them, at school; and why I should turn round now, and pretend to like them, I don't know, I'm sure. Horace and Virgil, indeed! Bother Horace and Virgil, I say."
At such flippancy as this both David and Clive looked too much pained to reply. They turned away in silence, and spoke to the guide.
"So you're not coming back to dinner?" said Frank.
"No," said David; "we want to see that tunnel."