“I am not a Brahmin either, or a—”
“Or take the case of murder. With us it is a crime, but in—”
“Poppycock! Would you do a murder, sir, to show your immunity to so-called custom?”
“I’m too kind-hearted,” murmured Belvoir.
“And yet you recommend us to throw overboard everything we have saved from the past—to cast convention to the winds—to wallow in a sty of the senses—to debauch—”
After a few purple seconds, like a puny Jeremiah, lifting spindle arms out of his sleeves while he raised his fists, he turned and stalked forth in a billow of smoke-grey tweed, kicking a porridge-bowl along the floor. Beholding me, he snapped “Good morning” while he went past.
“Lord Ludlow doesn’t stomach new ideas very readily. His digestion was formed during the supremacy of the late lamented V.R.”
Belvoir spoke from the floor, wherefrom he smilingly recovered the porridge-bowl. I then saw that other dishes, and silver, lay scattered.
The “stick of dynamite” explained, “The good Ludlow will jump incontinent to his feet when he wants to bully someone, regardless of whether his tray’s on his lap or not. He will eat his breakfast off a tray.”
“Good lord!”