"In a way he does; there have been Gallups in Redmarley nearly as long as us."
Mr Ffolliot said nothing. He sat staring at his tall young son as if he were a new person.
Grantly fidgetted and flushed and paled under this steady contemplation, saying at last: "You do see what I mean, don't you, father?"
"I do."
"That we ought to do something friendly?"
"He has certainly, through your idiotic fault, contrived to put us under an obligation. Why, I cannot think, but the fact remains. I do not know anything that could have annoyed me more."
Grantly ventured to think that perhaps a paragraph in the police reports of the local newspaper might have tried the Squire even more severely, but he did not say so. He waited.
"Does your mother know of all this?"
"Oh no, father, it would make her so sorry. Must we tell her?"
"Your tenderness for her feelings in no way restrained you at the time; why this solicitude now?"