Loring affected great precision of speech.
"I—fancy—I—received—instruction—from—numerous—persons—in—a—var-i-ety—of—places." And then with a sudden blaze of light in his big eyes:
"Much have I seen and known, cities of men,
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all...
My God! 'honoured of them all!'" He stopped suddenly.
"The next time you break out, you'll get the cocoa-saucepan at your head," I warned him. "Now answer Jim's question."
O'Rane sat staring at the fire until Loring threw a wastepaper basket at him.
"If you start scrapping——" he began. "Oh, what was your dam' silly question? Dear man, I was born in Prague, and, as I never stayed six months in the same country till I came to England, you can see my education was a bit of mixed grill. Father ..." he hesitated; it was the first time I had heard him mention any relation, " ... father used to teach me a bit himself. And once or twice I had a tutor. And for the most part he used to lay on a local priest. That's why I can hardly understand the way you chaps pronounce Latin and Greek. And then the Great Interregnum, the Wanderjahre...."
"Most of your life's been that," I commented.