Until Quorn's hunger and thirst were appeased he paid little attention to his companions, but when he had pushed his plate away and lighted up the churchwarden pipe that the house afforded, he fell to listening lazily to the unrestrained emphasis of their remarks.
"Fi'pun note! Fi'pun note!" exclaimed Mr. Fanning almost tragically. "And his blooming lordship, who didn't do nothin' more in the water than a cat would 'a done, smothered with wealth, just because 'e 'appens to 'ave a 'andle to his name. Mean, I call it; low mean."
"That it is," agreed Purvis. "And 'im adding insult to injury telling us to get a noo rig-out, and keep the change for our trouble. Noo rig-out? I'll wear my old boots and breeches down to the last nail and stitch first."
"Right!" exclaimed Fanning, with an energy which ignored the æsthetic considerations which such a proceeding would involve. "Fi'pun note!" he repeated, relapsing into his now chronic state of truculent grievance. "Fi'pun note for us poor deserving 'eroes, and two hundred thousand quid for that bit of gilt gingerbread, Lord Quorn."
"What?"
In a flash of enlightenment the real Lord Quorn jumped from his seat, and stood staring at the two men with distended eyes. "By Gum! You said Lord Quorn?"
"I did," Fanning declared, half defiantly, as not quite sure whether he had not opened his mouth rather too wide and too often. "I said Lord Quorn, and I meant Lord Quorn, but my grievance ain't agin 'is lordship. I blame no man for takin' wot's offered. Wot I blame and 'ate and detest is the meanness of those 'oo call themselves gents and reward a man not accordin' to the services rendered, but accordin' to persition in life."
The trenchant pronouncement was entirely wasted on the person to whom it was addressed.
"Lord Quorn!"
He had started to his feet with a great cry of self-recognition. The word seemed to have pierced the mist of oblivion which clouded his brain, and the incidents of the last hour of his former waking existence came thronging to his memory. Lord Quorn? Why, of course, he was Lord Quorn; although exactly what had happened to him in consequence he could not make out. "Lord Quorn?" he demanded eagerly of the astonished pair of grievance-nursers. "What about him?"