"Knowed my boy'd be one of the fust to offer hisself," said Millwood. My sister improved his manner of talking a good deal, in her lifetime, but when she left, he dropped back into his earlier methods. "I says, soon as ever I heard about the war being started, I says to myself, 'Mark my words. Young 'Erb'll be in this. Right in the very thick of it.'"
"Good to find you accept it like this. You being such an out and out Radical—"
"How could I accept it otherwise?" he demanded, warmly. "And can't a Radical be as partial to his country as what the bigoted dunderheaded Tories is? I remember hearing Bradlaugh say once—"
"I haven't called to talk politics."
"Because you know very well, Mary Weston, which of us comes the best off when you and me do have an argument."
"I do know. And I must say you generally accept your beating in very good part."
"I never get beaten in no discussion," he shouted, "and if I did, I shouldn't accept it in the way you describe. Often feel uncommon glad that I didn't pick out you instead of your poor sister. I might ha' done, but for what I may term the intervention of Providence. You was better educated than her, and to tell you the truth nothing but that saved me from making the blunder of a lifetime."
"I should perhaps have had a word or two to say in the matter."
"Can't imagine any subject on which you wouldn't."