Margot said happily: “I shall listen with pleasure to anything Sir Geoffrey has written.” Lionel turned to Fishpingle, who held the clipping in his hand. “Go ahead, Fishpingle! Please remember, Margot, that my father is astride his favourite hunter. Now for it!” Fishpingle, thus adjured, and after a glance at Sir Geoffrey, began to read aloud: “The question of in-and-in breeding——” “Gracious!” ejaculated Lady Pomfret. “I beg your ladyship’s pardon.” “How well you read!” said Margot. “Pray go on, you delightful person!” Fishpingle went on: “The question of in-and-in breeding, where the parent stock on both sides is vigorous and healthy, can only be answered by experiment. As a successful breeder of cattle, horses, and hounds, I am strongly in favour of it. If History is to be believed, the Pharaohs of the earlier dynasties, all of them pre-eminent for strength of mind and body, married their own sisters.” Lady Pomfret interrupted quietly: “I think that will do, Ben.” “Very good, my lady.” Lionel, watching his sire’s expression, confident that the clouds were rolling away, said, with a laugh: “Father, you’re down and out.” “I never wrote it,” said the Squire, emphatically. “Then who did? You signed it.” “Ben wrote it,” declared the Squire. “Ben?” echoed Lady Pomfret. “Did you write it, Ben?” Fishpingle replied modestly: “The sentence about the Pharaohs is mine, my lady. I happened to be reading about them at the time. And when I typed Sir Geoffrey’s manuscript——” Margot murmured: “What a paragon! A butler who does typewriting.” Sir Geoffrey said hastily: “It amuses Fishpingle. He’s what we call in the Forest a ‘caslety man.’ Yes, yes, I remember. He slipped in that paragraph about the Pharaohs.” “It hammered your point well home,” said Lionel. “It did,” said Margot. “Now, Sir Geoffrey, haul down your flag! Make this nice young couple happy, to please me.” “And me, Geoffrey.” The Squire, at bay, pressed too hard, and seeing, possibly, derisive gleams in more than one pair of eyes, said curtly: “I propose to be master in my own house.” Margot compressed her lips. She admitted candidly that any woman may be snubbed once. It is her own fault if she courts a second rebuff. She laughed acidulously, said very chillingly, “Oh, certainly,” and left the room. Lady Pomfret approached her husband, and laid her hand upon his sleeve. “Prudence is Ben’s kinswoman, very dear to him. If Ben approves this match, what business is it of ours?” Sir Geoffrey answered obstinately: “They were born and bred in my parish, this impudent couple. They can do what they like—out of it.” Lady Pomfret kept her temper admirably. If she travelled along lines of least resistance, she reached her goal eventually. She turned to Fishpingle with a little rippling laugh: “Ah, well, I leave the Squire with you, Ben. We know—don’t we?—how kind he can be.”