"We are still ten, are we not?" asked Mr. Whitechoker, counting the guests.
"Not if Mr. Pedagog and the late Mrs. Smithers have become one," said the Idiot. "But, as I was saying, before the happy event that reduced our number from ten to nine we were permitted to address our friend Pedagog in any terms we saw fit, and whenever he became sufficiently interested to indulge in repartee we were privileged to return it. Have we relinquished that privilege? I don't remember to have done so."
"It's a question worthy of your giant intellect," said Mr. Pedagog, scornfully. "For myself, I do not at all object to anything you may choose to say to me or of me. Your assaults are to me as water is to a duck's back."
"I am sorry," said the Idiot. "I hate family disagreements, and here we have Mrs. Pedagog taking one side and Mr. Pedagog the other. But whatever decision may ultimately be reached, of one thing Mrs. Pedagog must be assured. I on principle side against Mr. Pedagog, and if it be the wish of my good landlady that I shall refrain from playing intellectual battledore and shuttlecock with her husband, whom we all revere, I certainly shall refrain. Hereafter if I indulge in anything that in any sense resembles repartee with our landlord, I wish it distinctly understood that an apology goes with it."
"That's all right, my boy," said the School-Master. "You mean well. You are a little new, that's all, and we all understand you."
"I don't understand him," growled the Doctor, still smarting under the recollection of former breakfast-table discomfitures. "I wish we could get him translated."
"If you prescribed for me once or twice I think it likely I should be translated in short order," retorted the Idiot. "I wonder how I'd go translated into French?"
"You couldn't be expressed in French," put in the Lawyer. "It would take some barbarian tongue to do you justice."
"Very well," said the Idiot. "Proceed. Do me justice."
"I can't begin to," said Mr. Brief, angrily.