“Have you never looked out the name of Spratte in Debrett?”
“Frequently. I find the peerage excellent readin’ to fall back on when there’s nothin’ in the sportin’ papers. But it’s no bloomin’ good, Theodore; the family tree’s all bogus. A man with the name of Spratte didn’t have ancestors at the battle of Hastings.”
“I wish to goodness you would express yourself in grammatical English,” answered the Canon, irritably. “I detest slang, and I deplore this habit of yours of omitting the terminal letter of certain words.”
“You digress, my dear Theodore.”
“Not at all! I don’t deny that the family has had its vicissitudes; you will find it difficult to discover one in the peerage that has not. At all events my father implicitly believed in the family tree.”
“Well, he must have been a pretty innocent old buffer to do that. I never found any one else who would. Upon my word, I don’t see why a man called Spratte should have ancestors called Montmorency.”
“I should have thought that even in your brief stay at Oxford you learnt enough natural history to know that every man must have a father,” retorted the Canon, ironically.
Lord Spratte had been sent down from the ‘Varsity for some escapade of his early youth, and for thirty years his brother had never hesitated to remind him of it.
“All I can say is that if a man called Spratte had a father called Montmorency, the less said about it the better,” he answered. “I may be particular, but it don’t sound moral to me.”
“Your facetiousness is misplaced, Thomas, and considering that Winnie is present, the taste of it is more than doubtful. The connection at which you are pleased to sneer is perfectly clear and perfectly honourable. In 1631, Aubrey de Montmorency married....”