The conversation threatened to become acrimonious, so Mr. Wycherly intervened by asking mildly: "Is there anything either of you would like me to explain?"
"Oh, dear, no," Edmund exclaimed heartily. "Not till we come to Revelations. Then it's all explanation. It takes Mr. Gloag an hour to explain one wee verse, so I fear we'll only be able to do about a word at a time."
"But you must not expect me," Mr. Wycherly cried in dismay, "to be able to explain things as fully as Mr. Gloag, who is a trained theologian."
"We shouldn't like you to be as long as Mr. Gloag, Guardie dear; we shouldn't like it at all," Montagu answered reassuringly.
Whereupon, much relieved, Mr. Wycherly bade his wards good-night, and departed downstairs again where he sat for some considerable time pondering Montagu's view of the first fratricide. "It seems to me," he said to himself, "that it is I who will be the one to receive enlightenment."
It was three days since they had, as Mr. Wycherly put it, "come into residence," and during that time Mrs. Griffin's cooking had not improved. Neither had the house become less dusty or more tidy. The time was afternoon, about five o'clock, and they sat at tea; a singularly unappetising tea.
Smeary silver, cups and plates all bearing the impress of Mrs. Griffin's thumb, two plates of thick bread-and-butter and a tin of bloater-paste were placed upon a dirty tablecloth. Neither Mr. Wycherly nor the boys liked bloater-paste, but Mrs. Griffin did. Hence it graced the feast.
Edmund was tired of bad meals. The novelty, what he at first called the "Swissishness," was wearing off, and as he took his place at table that afternoon there flashed into his mind a vivid picture of the tea-table at Remote. Aunt Esperance sitting kind and smiling behind the brilliant silver teapot that reflected such funny-looking little boys; the white, white napery—Aunt Esperance was so particular about tablecloths—laden with scones, such good scones, both plain and currant! Shortbread in a silver cake-basket; and jam, crystal dishes full of jam, two kinds, topaz-coloured and ruby.
Somehow the sight of that horrid tin of bloater-paste evoked a poignantly beatific vision of the jam. It was the jam broke Edmund down.
He gave a dry sob, laid his arms on the table and his head on his arms, wailing: "Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish Aunt Esperance hadn't gone and died."