'No.'
'I can't find out that you have done anything! Well, tell me one thing, and I'll forgive you; are you and your wife going to give a grand entertainment by and by, and ask all these people you have been slighting? Of course, I do not mean here; you could not do it here; but at home; by and by, at Chickaree. Will you do that?'
'I see one difficulty in the way,' said Dane, adjusting and arranging a lovely photograph of Ischl, and speaking with a negligent regard of the other subject in hand which greatly provoked his mentor.
'What can that difficulty be? You have everything'
'One thing more than you have reckoned. I have the poor, and the maim, and the halt and the blind to look after.'
'What has that to do with the point?'
'Prior claim,that is all.'
'But you have rich neighbours too.'
'Yes. But they are not in so much need of me.'
'My dear Dane! you are absurd.'