“The cloak? You should know it, since it came out of your own wardrobe!”
“Mine! I deny the imputation.”
He laughed with a cynical twist of the mouth, and regarded his son slyly over the rim of his wineglass.
“Well, it came out of your room, sir!”
“Come, come, Jack!”
“My boy Sparkin fished it out of a chest when he was advising me on frills and fashions. The sobriety of the garment suited my inclinations.”
Stephen Gore’s eyes gleamed for the moment with a flash of fierce impatience.
“The meddlesome ape! You must pardon me being tickled by the irony of facts. Since Captain Jack Gore listens to a cook-boy’s opinions on costumes, I am mum.”
The son seemed amused and piqued in turn by his father’s inquisitive and fanatical prejudices. He swung the cloak from his shoulders and held it up with one hand.
“What have you to quarrel with, sir? The refinements of fashion are too deep for me. I shall be landed in Newgate for wearing the wrong kind of buckle on my shoes before the week is out.”