“Oh, small harm. I did not press my argument until he had emptied every dish. As you see, neither ham nor egg hath left a stain.”
I helped him recover the disiecta membra. While we collected the crockery from the carpet, Belvoir murmured, “Poor Ludlow! Too many spinning-mills—I’m afraid some of them are going on in his brain.”
“Spinning-mills!”
“Yes, didn’t you know? Our noble friend is chairman of a good few businesses in cloth—from Ulster to the Outer Hebrides.”
“But really, Mr. Belvoir, I’m surprised to find you carrying on any academic controversy this morning.”
“Eh?” His features held a vague look of trouble.
I had set about loading a goodly plate at the sideboard. “Well, it strikes me that you were having a row about the wrong thing.”
“The wrong thing?”
“Gad, man, hasn’t anything happened here to set tongues wagging, that you must bicker with the noble Lord about folkways and the comparative conceptions of chastity?”
“Why, you don’t mean—”