“Oh no.”
“What do you go for, then?”
“I’ve only gone in with the others when I have been out with them.”
“Pell’s sons and the Honourable Mr. Crayton. Rather ostentatious of you, Johnny Ludlow, to hasten to tell me he was the ‘Honourable.’”
My face flushed. I had not said it in that light.
“One day at Pershore Fair, in a booth, the clown jumped on to the boards and introduced himself,” continued Mr. Brandon: “‘I’m the clown, ladies and gentlemen,’ said he. That’s the Honourable Mr. Crayton, say you.—And so you have gone in with Mr. Crayton and the Pells!”
“And with Joseph Todhetley.”
“Ay. And perhaps London will do him more harm than it will you; you’re not much better than a boy yet, hardly up to bad things. I wonder what possessed Joe’s father to let you two come up to stay with the Pells! I should have been above it in his place.”
“Above it? Why, Mr. Brandon, they live in ten times the style we do.”
“And spend twenty times as much over it. Who was thinking about style or cost, Mr. Johnny? Don’t you mistake Richard for Robert.”