"You can go if you like."
"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill accents of contempt. "I don't care a button for all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money. I'm as good as he is any day. My family go about, and do some business——"
"Your family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"
"Yes, my family—as good as yours, I should think! What's your family then, that you should be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"
"You be descended from a quart pot," said Iden.
This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather, who had kept a small wayside public. There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very respectable man, and laid the foundation of his family's fortune, but it drove Mrs. Iden into frenzy.
"You talk about a quart pot—you," she shrieked. "Why, your family have drunk up thousands of pounds—you know they have. Where's the Manor? they swilled it away. Where's Upper Court? they got it down their throats. They built a house to drink in and nothing else. You know they did. You told me yourself. The most disgraceful set of drunkards that ever lived!"
"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?" said Iden.
"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years—why, you're always talking about it."
"Your family be as nervous as cats—see their hands shake in the morning."