“My boy, I am thoroughly ashamed of you,” said his uncle, looking queerly at him. “You are most immature for married life, if you give way to your feelings so.”
“But uncle, when a man is down so much, and turned out of doors by his own father——”
“When a ‘man’! When a ‘boy’ is what you mean, I suppose. A man would take it differently.”
“I am sure I take it very well,” said Hilary, trying to smile at it. “There, I will drink up my beer; for I know that sort of thing always vexes you. Now, can you say that I have kicked up a row, or done anything that I might have done?”
“No, my boy, no; quite the opposite thing; you have taken it most angelically.”
“Angelically, without an angelus, uncle, or even a stiver in my pocket! Only the cherub aloft, you know——”
“I don’t know anything about him; and the allusion, to my mind, is profane.”
“Now, uncle, you are hyperclerical, because I have caught you dressed as a bagman!”
“I don’t understand your big Oxford words. In my days they taught theology.”
“And hunting; come now, Uncle Struan, didn’t they teach you hunting?”