"Then," rejoined Peckover sarcastically, "since you are so wide-awake, perhaps you can explain why I didn't take the title myself?"
"I suppose," Quorn replied nastily, "you didn't feel you could fill the part."
"Of a British nobleman?" Peckover laughed scornfully. "Too steady and respectable, eh? My highly creditable record wouldn't have stood in my way if I'd had a chance of nobbling the coronet."
Quorn brought his fist down with a bang on the table. "D—n it, man, who is this fellow?"
"Lord Quorn," Peckover maintained.
"Lord Quorn!" The real man could not find words to express his disgust. "How did you pick him up?" he demanded, seeing the uselessness of arguing the question of identity.
"He picked me up," Peckover replied coolly.
"How? When? Where?"
"I'll tell you all about it, if you won't make such a noise," Peckover said suavely. "He came to the Quorn Arms just after you had made that little mistake in the refreshment, and announced himself as Lord Quorn; and who was I to say he was not Lord Quorn?"
"Funny," remarked Quorn, "that he should have brought you along here."