"I do say so," said Doutfire, whose reputation clearly hinged on the correctness of the statement.
"I knew he was not Lord Quorn," put in Lady Ormstork.
"He told me he was," observed Miss Buffkin.
Mr. Doutfire turned a threateningly suspicious glance on the stolid Quorn, then pursed his mouth with a pitying smile of non-acceptance as he shook his head emphatically at the young lady. "He's Peckover all right, miss," he assured her. Then glared at Quorn as though challenging him to deny it.
And Quorn, although not overburdened with intellect, had sense enough to recognize that his game just then was to lie low and admit nothing if he could help it.
"My dear Ulrica," said Lady Ormstork in her superior fashion, "how could you allow yourself to be taken in by such a transparent pretence? Does the person look in the least like Lord Quorn?"
"Or any other nobleman?" supplemented Doutfire, with menacing sarcasm. "Of course," he added, in a more uncompromisingly professional tone, "if he has been defrauding any of you ladies and gentlemen, under the false pretence that he is Lord Quorn, I'll take him now to Bunbury against your preferring a charge against him."
His enquiring look round meeting with no response, save a scornful smile from Quorn, Doutfire proceeded, eyeing the suspect malevolently, "I don't know how he comes to be here, in this house, but——"
"He stopped my horse that was running away with me," Gage explained chivalrously.
"Oh!" Mr. Doutfire's face hardened, as though that in itself were a questionable circumstance, and made the doubtful record worse. "Well, of course," he continued, not seeing his way to any active measures under the reprobative circumstances, "if you are satisfied, it is no business of mine. I've merely done my duty."