"Thank you, Mr. Morgan, I am well."
"And my good friend, your dear wife? blooming, eh?"
"I'm not aware that Mrs. Nash ever was a friend of yours."
"No! my dear fellow! when we were so often under the same roof together."
"Do the servants of a house always regard their master's friends as their own?"
"My dear Nash, if you hadn't said that I should have said it was meant to be nasty. I was in the service of the head of the house, and your wife was a sort of attendant of the daughter's.
"Do you dare to say that my wife was ever Miss Lindsay's attendant?"
"Unpaid attendant, my boy, unpaid; sort of hanger-on--poor companion. I received a regular income; she got an occasional frock; some article of clothing; now and then a few pounds; as it were, the crumbs which fell from Miss Lindsay's table. Of course, pecuniarily mine was much the better position of the two; but I always have been one to overlook a mere financial difference, and I hope I always shall be."
"Look here, Morgan, if you're come down with the express intention of being insolent, I'll wring your neck, here, in the station."
Mr. Nash looked as if he were capable of at least trying to perform that operation on Mr. Morgan there and then, but Mr. Morgan only smiled.