“Oh, they seem all right. Rory’s girl’s extraordinary pretty—pretty manners, too.”
“Charming! ‘I should lo-o-ove to,’” and she reproduced admirably Concha’s company voice. “However,” she went on, “we have a great deal to be thankful for—it might have been Miss Penn. ‘Don’t you ado-o-ore albinos?’ Oh, I shall _never_ forget it ... and Major Arbuthnot’s face! Still, if it had been she, I must say I should have loved to see the sensation produced on Edinburgh by old Jimmy’s walking down Princes Street with her.”
As it was too large a party to get comfortably into the dining-room, a big tent had been pitched on the lawn, and several long narrow tables joined together, and there they dined, an ill-assorted company.
At one end Dr. Sinclair was shouting to Lady Cust, “Well, I’d send him to that co-education place, but, unfortunately, they don’t ... er ... LEARN anything there. They make the fourth form read Tolstoy’s _Resurrection_, which is not ... er ... only the most ... er ... TRASHY of all the works of genius, but the only ... er ... _lesson_ to be learned from it is the ... er ... inadvisability of ... er ... SEDUCING A RUSSIAN PEASANT GIRL, and ... er ... unfortunately, an ... er ... er ... English schoolboy hasn’t many opportunities of doing that ... er ... er....”
He looked at her, slightly puzzled—her face was pink with suppressed laughter; but, as she was meant to laugh, why suppress it?
Elfrida Penn was terrifying “Crippin” Arbuthnot by searching questions as to whether the erotic adventures of his schooldays had been similar to those described in a recent novel about life at a public school.
Edward Lane was saying to Jollypot, “Yes, before my niece—Olive Jackson, you know—went to school, I said to her, ‘my advice to you is: _keep your hands clean_.’ I always....”
“Oh, Mr. Lane, that was beautiful!” cried Jollypot.
“Yes, I always say a lady can be known by the way she keeps her _hands_.”
But Dick and Hugh, at any rate, yelling at each other across the intervening forms of Concha and Rory, were in perfect harmony. “I say, Dick, do you remember old Bright, the butler at your father’s? And how angry he used to be when we asked him if he was any relation of John Bright?”