‘I ask where it came from:  I ask whether it’s squandered?’ he continued.

’Mr. Beltham, I reply that you have only to ask for it to have it; do so immediately.’

’What ‘s he saying?’ cried the baffled old man.

‘I give you a thousand times the equivalent of the money, Mr. Beltham.’

‘Is the money there?’

‘The lady is here.’

‘I said money, sir.’

‘A priceless honour and treasure, I say emphatically.’  My grandfather’s brows and mouth were gathering for storm.  Janet touched his knee.

’Where the devil your understanding truckles, if you have any, I don’t know,’ he muttered.  ‘What the deuce—­lady got to do with money!’

‘Oh!’ my father laughed lightly, ’customarily the alliance is, they say, as close as matrimony.  Pardon me.  To speak with becoming seriousness, Mr. Beltham, it was duly imperative that our son should be known in society, should be, you will apprehend me, advanced in station, which I had to do through the ordinary political channel.  There could not but be a considerable expenditure for such a purpose.’

‘In Balls, and dinners!’

‘In everything that builds a young gentleman’s repute.’

’You swear to me you gave your Balls and dinners, and the lot, for Harry Richmond’s sake?’

‘On my veracity, I did, sir!’

’Please don’t talk like a mountebank.  I don’t want any of your roundabout words for truth; we’re not writing a Bible essay.  I try my best to be civil.’

My father beamed on him.

’I guarantee you succeed, sir.  Nothing on earth can a man be so absolutely sure of as to succeed in civility, if he honestly tries at it.  Jorian DeWitt,—­by the way, you may not know him—­an esteemed old friend of mine, says—­that is, he said once—­to a tolerably impudent fellow whom he had disconcerted with a capital retort, “You may try to be a gentleman, and blunder at it, but if you will only try to be his humble servant, we are certain to establish a common footing.”  Jorian, let me tell you, is a wit worthy of our glorious old days.’

My grandfather eased his heart with a plunging breath.

’Well, sir, I didn’t ask you here for your opinion or your friend’s, and I don’t care for modern wit.’

’Nor I, Mr. Beltham, nor I!  It has the reek of stable straw.  We are of one mind on that subject.  The thing slouches, it sprawls.  It—­to quote Jorian once more—­is like a dirty, idle, little stupid boy who cannot learn his lesson and plays the fool with the alphabet.  You smile, Miss Ilchester:  you would appreciate Jorian.  Modern wit is emphatically degenerate.  It has no scintillation, neither thrust nor parry.  I compare it to boxing, as opposed to the more beautiful science of fencing.’

‘Well, sir, I don’t want to hear your comparisons,’ growled the squire, much oppressed.  ‘Stop a minute . . .’

‘Half a minute to me, sir,’ said my father, with a glowing reminiscence of Jorian DeWitt, which was almost too much for the combustible old man, even under Janet’s admonition.