"I'd rather she knew than seem to go back on Gallup."
"You may go, Grantly, and leave me to digest this particularly disagreeable intelligence. I have long reconciled myself to your lack of intellectual ability, but I did not know that you indulged in such coarse pleasures."
"Father—did you never do anything of that kind when you were young?"
"Most truthfully I can answer that I never did. It would not have amused me in the least."
"It didn't amuse me," Grantly said ruefully; "I can't remember much about it."
"Go," said Mr Ffolliot, and Grantly went, looking rather like Parker with his tail between his legs.
Hardly had Mr Ffolliot realised the import of what Grantly had told him when the door was opened again and Buz came in.
Buz, too, made straight for the hearth-rug, and standing there faced his bewildered parent (these sudden invasions were wholly without precedent), saying: "I've come to tell you, sir, that I think we ought to ask Mr Gallup to dinner."
Had Mr Ffolliot been a man of his hands he would have fallen upon Buz and boxed his ears there and then; as it was, he replied bitterly:
"I am not interested in your opinion, boy, on this or any other subject. Leave the room at once."