“I don’t know,” said Eddy, reflectively, “that one can be so very sure of that; now that everything goes by competition, you can’t tell by his profession that any man is a gentleman. Besides, they speak Latin between themselves,” said the young man, with an unmoved countenance.
“Eddy!” cried Rosamond.
“Well, they do. I allow it’s queer, but I have heard them avec mes propres oreilles, va! and Latin grammar is quite different from English—far more elaborate, and that sort of thing. English translated out of Latin would naturally sound a little strange.”
Even Evelyn looked at him with a little surprise, uncertain whether to laugh or not. She was but little interested in the ways of college dons. She had a kind of belief that there was something in what he said about competition. The gardener’s son was at college, and if he came to be a don he would no doubt remain a little inelegant in point of grammar.
While she was thus pondering, her husband took the matter in hand.
“Send him an invitation as Eddy’s friend,” he said, in his large and liberal way; “if he were a coal-heaver what does it matter, so long as he is Eddy’s friend? And I don’t suppose the young ladies will think of his conversation; they will be more interested in his dancing. It’s a question of heel and toe, and not of hs.”
“I don’t know that he dances much,” said Eddy; “but he could always prop up a doorway, and it would please him awfully to come and look on.”
“You’ll ask him, of course, Evelyn,” Mr. Rowland said.
And he was asked, of course; and the invitation was handed to him next day on the hillside, where he met Archie and Eddy and the gamekeeper, and was supplied with a gun, to the great disdain of the latter functionary.
“That man has never had a gun in his hands till this day,” said Roderick, aside; “keep out of his road, for any sake, Mr. Airchie: he will never hit a grouse, but he might put a wheen shots into you or me.”