“You may have got thirty daughters, without knowing anything at all about them.”
“But, my good sir, my wife, at least—come now, is that no experience?”
“You may have got sixty wives, sir, and be as much in the dark as ever. Ducksbill, you know; come now, Ducksbill, give us your experience.”
“Sir Remnant, I am inclined to think that, upon the whole, your view of the question is the one that would be sustained. Though the subject has so many ramifications, that possibly his Reverence——”
“Knows nothing at all about it. Gadzooks, sir! less than nothing. I tell you they have no will of their own any more than they have any judgment. A man with a haporth of brains may do exactly what he likes with them. Colonel, you know it; come, Colonel, now, after all your battles——”
“My battles were not fought amongst the women,” said Colonel Clumps, very curtly.
“Hear, hear!” cried the Rector, smacking his fat leg, in the joy of a new alliance.
“Very well, sir,” said Sir Remnant, with his wrath diverted from the parson to the soldier; “you mean, I suppose, that my battles have been fought among the women only?”
“I said nothing of the sort. I know nothing of your battles. You alluded to mine, and I spoke my mind.” Colonel Clumps had been vexed by Sir Remnant’s words. He had long had a brother officer’s widow in his mind; and ever since he had been under-fitted with a piece of boxwood, his feelings were hurt whenever women were run down in his presence.
“Chapman, I think,” said Sir Roland Lorraine, to assuage the rising storm, “that we might as well leave these little points (which have been in debate for some centuries) for future centuries to settle at their perfect leisure. Mr. Ducksbill, the wine is with you. Struan, you are not getting on at all. My son has been in Portugal, and he says these olives are the right ones.”