Glenville replied in his most polite manner that he was sure she could never be so cruel.

The Drag did not understand him.

“Confound the old aunt,” said he, as he sat down to the table in the dining-room to his mathematical papers, “why did she not stick to the tallow-chandling, instead of coming here?  Don’t you think, Barton, our respected governors ought to pay less for our coaching on account of the drag?  Of course we really pay something extra on her account; but, generally speaking, you know an irremovable nuisance would diminish the value of an estate, and I think a coach with an irremovable drag ought to fetch less than a coach without encumbrances.”

“I daresay you are right,” said Barton.  “The two women will ruin Porky between them.  The quantity of donkey chaises they require is something awful.  To be sure the hill is rather steep in hot weather.”

“Yes,” said Glenville, “they began by trying one chaise between them, ride and tie; but Mrs. Porkington always would ride the first half of the way, and so Miss Candlish only rode the last quarter, until at last the first half grew to such enormous proportions that it caused a difference between the ladies, and Porkington had to allow two donkey chaises.  How they do squabble, to be sure, about which of the two it really is who requires the chaise!”

“I can’t help thinking Socrates was a fool to want to be killed when he had done nothing to deserve it,” said Thornton, with a yawn, as he put down his book.

“Yes,” said Glenville, “nowadays a man expects to take his whack first—­I mean to hit some man on the head, or stab some woman in the breast, first.  Then he professes himself quite ready for the consequences, and poetic justice is satisfied.”

“How a man can put the square root of minus three eggs into a basket, and then give five to one person, and half the remainder and the square of the whole, divided by twelve, and so on, I never could understand; but perhaps the answer is wrong, I mean the square root of minus three.”

“Oh, if that is your answer, Barton,” said Glenville, “you are fairly floored.  Take care you don’t get an answer of that sort—­a facer, I mean—­from the ‘pretty fisher maiden.’”

“Don’t chaff, Glenville,” cried Barton; “you are always talking some folly or other.”

“Well, well, let us have some beer and a pipe.

   ’He, who would shine and petrify his tutor,
   Should drink draught Allsopp from its native pewter.’

We shall all go to the dance to-night, I suppose—­Thornton, of course, lured by the two Will-o-the-wisps in Miss Delamere’s black eyes.”

“Go, and order the beer, Dick,” said Thornton, “and come back a wiser, if not a sadder man.”  Dick procured the beer; and, it being now twelve o’clock at noon, pipes were lit, and papers and books remained in abeyance, though not absolutely forgotten.  At half-past twelve Mr. Porkington looked in timidly to see how work was progressing, to assist in the classics, and to disentangle the mathematics; but the liberal sciences were so besmothered with tobacco smoke and so bespattered with beer, that the poor little man did not even dare to come to their assistance; but coughed, and smiled, and said feebly that he would come again when the air was a little clearer.