And he might have looked a very long time, in his stupidly confident manner, without a chance of getting it; for Rufus Hutton disliked allusions even to age intellectual, when you came to remember that his Rosa was more than twenty years younger.
“Ah, yes, now it strikes me”, continued Mr. Corklemore, as they stood in front of the house, “that little bow–window—nay, I am given to understand, that bay–window is the more correct—haw! I mean the more architectural term—I think I should have felt inclined to make that nice bay–window give to the little grass–plot. A mere question, perhaps, of idiosyncrasy, haw”!
“Give what”? asked Rufus, now on the foam. That his own pet lawn, which he rolled every day, his lawn endowed with manifold curves and sweeps of his own inventing, with the Wellingtonia upon it, and the plantain dug out with a cheese–knife—that all this should be called a “little grass–plot”, by a fellow who had no two ideas, except in his intonation of “Haw”!
“Haw! It does not signify. But the term, I am given to understand, is now the correct and recognised one”.
“I wish you were given to understand anything except your own importance”, Rufus muttered savagely, and eyed the yellow bamboo.
“Have you—haw! excuse my asking, for you are a great luminary here; have you as yet made trial of the Spergula pilifera”?
“Yes; and found it the biggest humbug that ever aped Godʼs grass”.
Dr. Hutton was always very sorry when he had used strong language; but being a thin–skinned, irritable, cut–the–corner man, he could not be expected to stand Nowell Corklemoreʼs “haws”.