"I don't care what he gave him. He'd no earthly business to take advantage of it. Not with that sort of person. Besides, it wouldn't matter about Ballinger so much, but there's old Susan and the kiddies…. He doesn't see how perfectly sickening it is for me."
"It isn't very nice for your mother."
"No; it's jolly hard on the poor mater…. Well, I can't stick it much longer. I'm just about fed up with Horatio Bysshe. I shall clear out first thing in the morning before he's down. I don't care if I never see him or speak to him again."
"I say, I say, how about the midsummer holidays?"
"Oh, damn the midsummer holidays!"
"Isn't it rather rotten to take a line you can't possibly keep up?"
"That's all right. Whatever I may do in the future," said young Horace magnificently, "I've got to give him his punishment now."
Ralph laughed. Young Horace was as big an egoist as his father, but with these differences: his blood was hot instead of cold, he had his mother's humour, and he was not a fool. Ralph wondered how he would have felt if he had realized Mrs. Levitt's part in the Ballinger affair.
3
Mr. Waddington remained standing on his platform. They were coming round him now, grasping him by the hand, congratulating him: Sir John Corbett, the Rector, Major Markham of Wyck Wold and Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicott.