Thus appealed to, Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn could only assent: but he did so with a bad grace, and with a contemptuous glance at Basil. It was really too bad of Sir Peter to suggest that he, Jerome Brooke-Hoskyn, the Man of Fashion, the friend of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox, had anything in common with this shabby musician.
Mrs. Poskett bridled. "Do you include the French people at Number Four?" she said.
"They are not French, ma'am," retorted the Admiral, "and if they were, they couldn't help it."
Mrs. Poskett pointed with a giggle to the Eyesore, who was at that moment lovingly fixing one more worm on his hook. "Do you include the Eyesore?"
"No, I do not!" roared the Admiral, in a rage. "He doesn't live here. If England were under a proper government, he would be hanged for trespassing. I 've tried to remove him, as you know, but—ha!—it appears he has as much right here as any of us."
"After all," said Basil, soothingly, "he never moves from one spot."
"He never speaks to anybody," added Mrs. Poskett.
"He'd better not, ma'am!"
And Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn summed up with a laugh, "And I will do him the justice to say, he never catches a fish!"
Basil held up a warning hand, for the door of Number Four had just opened.