“What harm is it to want to get a better education than what I have?  I don’t see why I shouldn’t want to go to Oxford, or Switzerland either, for the matter o’ that—­as well as another!”

Father Greer, as Dr. Mangan remarked subsequently, took Barty’s making a fool of himself very well.  He put his head on one side, his black eyebrows went up, and he again uttered that succession of sniffs that served him for a laugh.

“It seems that I have made a railing accusation without meaning it, and brought down fire from heaven, like the Prophet Elijah, only to find that I am myself to forrum the burnt offering!” he said, pleasantly.  “Well, well, Barty, don’t consume me entirely in your just indignation, and I’ll promise you to make no insinuendoes in future as to whether you’re a good or bad Irishman!”

I am unable to determine if Father Greer deliberately devised this felicitous amalgamation of the two words that were in his mind, or if it was unintentional, and an indication that Barty’s brief flare of revolt had flustered him a little.  I am inclined to the latter theory.  In any case, the word is a useful one.

CHAPTER XVI

Christian was in the kennels, in their innermost depths.  She was, in fact, seated on the bench of “the ladies” lodging-house, on the dry and rustling cushion of bracken on which Major Talbot-Lowry bedded his pack.

Yearning to her, sitting all over her, covering her with their ponderous affection, were the hounds.  Two large ladies had each a head on each of her shoulders; two more had laid their chins on her knees, and were gazing raptly into her face.  The less favoured stood, and squeezed, and pushed, and panted, with glowing eyes and waving sterns, in as close a circle round her as it was possible to form.

“Dearest things!” apostrophised Christian, “I feel like Nero—­I wish you had only one lovely head, so that I might kiss you all at once!”

“Rot!” said Larry, who was leaning against the wall, facing her, and saying:  “Down, you brute!” at intervals, to hounds, who, having failed to force their way to Christian, were directing their attention to him, to the detriment of his grey flannel trousers.  “And look at your dress from their filthy paws!”

“Good Gawd, Mr. Larry Sir!  Don’t say paws!  ’Ounds ’ave feet” responded Christian, whose imitation of Cottingham was no less accurate now than it had been some eight years earlier; “and I don’t care a pin for this old skirt anyway—­”

“I’m as fond of hounds as anyone,” said Larry, reprovingly, “but I must say I should draw the line at their licking my face!”

“They don’t!” said Christian, indignantly; “that’s the beauty of them, They never lick—­except perhaps my darling Nancy, because I nursed her when she had pneumonia.”

“If I were you, Cottingham, I wouldn’t let Miss Christian into the kennels,” said Larry, with severity, “she makes lap-dogs of the hounds!”