"I'll tell you the story. Last year, when I was at Canterstone for the shooting, I was placed next to a man whom I had never seen in my life, and whom I never wanted to see in my life again. What Charlie asked him for, beats me. I believe, if he knew one end of a gun from the other, it was as much as he did know. I doubt if there ever was his ditto as a shot. I wiped his eye over and over again. I kept on doing it. I couldn't help it—I had to. He never hit a bird. But he didn't like it, any the more for that. We had something like a row before the day was over. I fancy that I said something about a barber's clerk. Anyhow, I know I walked off there and then."
"You nice, agreeable child! It's my opinion that all you men are the same when you are shooting—missing links. And, pray, what has this pleasant little sidelight on the sweetness of your disposition got to do with the new Lord Chancellor?"
"Only this,—the new Lord Chancellor's the man I called a barber's clerk."
"Tommy! How horrible!"
"It does seem pretty lively. You should have seen how he looked at me when Datchet just now introduced us. Unless I am mistaken in the gentleman, when this little affair of our's leaks out, and I'm brought up in front of him, and he sees who I am, he'll straightway consign me to the deepest dungeon, and keep me there, at any rate as long as he's Lord Chancellor. It's only a cheerful little prophecy of mine. But you mark my words, and see."
"My poor, dear boy! Whatever shall we do?"
"There's one thing I should like to do, and chance it;—I should like to kick Sir Tristram Triggs!"
"Kick who? Sir Tristram Triggs! Tommy! Why would you like to kick Sir Tristram Triggs?"
"That's the beggar's name."
