The squire said something of Government to my aunt Dorothy, with sarcastical emphasis.

As the observation was unnecessary, and was wantonly thrown in by him, she seized on it to escape from her compromising silence:  ’I know nothing of Government or its ways.’

She murmured further, and looked at Janet, who came to her aid, saying:  ’Grandada, we’ve had enough talk of money, money!  All is done that you wanted done.  Stocks, Shares, Banks—­we’ve gone through them all.  Please, finish!  Please, do.  You have only to state what you have heard from Prince Hermann.’

Janet gazed in the direction of my father, carefully avoiding my eyes, but evidently anxious to shield my persecuted aunty.

‘Speaking of Stocks and Shares, Miss Ilchester,’ said my father, ’I myself would as soon think of walking into a field of scythe-blades in full activity as of dabbling in them.  One of the few instances I remember of our Jorian stooping to a pun, is upon the contango:  ingenious truly, but objectionable, because a pun.  I shall not be guilty of repeating it.  “The stockmarket is the national snapdragon bowl,” he says, and is very amusing upon the Jews; whether quite fairly, Mr. Beltham knows better than I, on my honour.’

He appealed lightly to the squire, for thus he danced on the crater’s brink, and had for answer,

‘You’re a cool scoundrel, Richmond.’

‘I choose to respect you, rather in spite of yourself, I fear, sir,’ said my father, bracing up.

‘Did you hear my conversation with my daughter?’

‘I heard, if I may say so, the lion taking his share of it.’

‘All roaring to you, was it?’

’Mr. Beltham, we have our little peculiarities; I am accustomed to think of a steam-vent when I hear you indulging in a sentence of unusual length, and I hope it is for our good, as I thoroughly believe it is for yours, that you should deliver yourself freely.’

‘So you tell me; like a stage lacquey!’ muttered the old man, with surprising art in caricaturing a weakness in my father’s bearing, of which I was cruelly conscious, though his enunciation was flowing.  He lost his naturalness through forcing for ease in the teeth of insult.

‘Grandada, aunty and I will leave you,’ said Janet, waxing importunate.

‘When I’ve done,’ said he, facing his victim savagely.  ’The fellow pretends he didn’t understand.  She’s here to corroborate.  Richmond, there, my daughter, Dorothy Beltham, there’s the last of your fools and dupes.  She’s a truthful woman, I’ll own, and she’ll contradict me if what I say is not the fact.  That twenty-five thousand from “Government” came out of her estate.’

‘Out of—­’

‘Out of be damned, sir!  She’s the person who paid it.’

‘If the “damns” have set up, you may as well let the ladies go,’ said I.

He snapped at me like a rabid dog in career.