"No," Peckover agreed, "but he can have a good try for it, and the process might not be pleasant."
"I never heard such nonsense."
"No; I wouldn't have believed it," said Peckover, "if I hadn't had the fellow's dukes round my windpipe. He is just a buffalo in trousers. And if you get up, and shy at the sister, who is a hyæna in petticoats, you'll know it; that is, if he leaves you in a state to know anything."
"A pretty abominable treat you've let me in for," said Gage sourly. "But I'm not going to stay in this four-poster. You've got to go and square this at once. Ask them what they'll take to go back."
"I've offered them a couple of hundred," Peckover replied, "and got nearly strangled for my trouble."
"Couple of hundred!" said Gage contemptuously. "You'll have to make it thousands and take it out of your five."
"Oh, I say!" the other protested.
"All right; if you don't," Gage declared resolutely, "I'll chuck the title and leave you and your friends to fight it out among yourselves. If she means Lord Quorn she shall have him, but not me, my boy. And I'm not going to stop between the sheets for any bush-ranger in Australia or out of it. So there!"