His father did not trouble to suppress a sarcastic smile.
“Oh, if you are a philosopher I have nothing more to say, save that you have chosen the wrong school. There is the philosophy of clothes to be considered at this happy period of ours. If you wish to try your Diogenes’ humor, go to court in some such scraffle. You would be clapped in the Tower for insulting the King.”
John Gore laughed.
“Who himself knows what ragged stockings and flea-ridden beds mean.”
“Exactly so, sir, and therefore any tactless allusion to the past would be uncourtierlike in the extreme.”
My lord betrayed some impatience in his last retort, very possibly because he beheld a group of acquaintances approaching with all the niceness of fashionable distinction. The young gallants of the court had all the merciless cynicism of premature middle-age. Genius, to prove itself, scintillated with satire. Even when the youngsters laughed, their laughter symbolized an epigram, a caricature, or a lampoon.
Lord Gore advanced very valiantly under the enemy’s fire. The party numbered among its members Tom Chiffinch, the redoubtable royal pimp.
There was an ironical lifting of hats. John Gore’s costume had interested the party for the last twenty yards of its approach. My lord would have marched past with flags flying. But from some instinct of devilry the gentlemen appeared overjoyed at the rencontre.
“We must take you with us to the Mall, my lord.”
“His Majesty has a match there.”