‘Stand out of the way there, can’t you,’ cried Noel, elbowing aside a sturdy London rough as he spoke with a dexterous application of his gold-tipped umbrella. ‘Why do you get in people’s way and block the road up, my good fellow?’
‘Where are you a-pushin’ to?’ the rough answered, not without reason, crowding in upon him sturdily in defence of his natural rights of standing-room, and bringing his heavy foot down plump on Harry Noel’s neatly fitting walking-shoe. ‘An’ who are you, I should like to know, a-shovin’ other people aside permiscuous like, as if you was acthally the Prince of Wales or the Dook of Edinboro? I’d like to hear you call me a fellow again, I should!’
‘Appears to be some confusion in the man’s mind,’ said Noel, pushing past him angrily, ‘between a fellow and a felon. I haven’t got an etymological dictionary handy in my pocket, I regret to say, but I venture to believe, my good friend, that your philology is quite as much at fault in this matter as your English grammar.’
‘My dear Noel,’ Hawthorn put in, ‘please don’t add insult to injury. The man’s quite within his right in objecting to your pushing him out of a place he took up before you came here. Possession’s nine points of the law, you know—ten in the matter of occupancy, indeed—and surely he’s the prior occupant.’
‘Oh, if you’re going to hold a brief for the defendant, my dear boy, why, of course I throw the case up.—Besides, there she is, Teddy. By Jove, there she is. That’s her. Over yonder on the lawn there—the very pretty girl by the edge of the wall overhanging the path here.’
‘What, the one in blue?’
‘The one in blue! Gracious goodness, no. The other one—the very pretty girl; the one in the pink dress, as fresh as a daisy. Did you ever see anybody prettier?’
‘Oh, her,’ Edward answered, looking across at the lady in pink carelessly. ‘Yes, yes; I see now. Pretty enough, as you say, Harry.’
‘Pretty enough! Is that all you’ve got to say about her! You block of ice! you lump of marble! Why, my dear fellow, she’s absolute perfection. That’s the worst, now, of a man’s being engaged. He loses his eye entirely for female beauty.’
‘What did you say her name was?’