"As far as I remember I didn't say much myself. What I did say certainly was not in your favour. But I was hardest on that sweet young lady with the Italian name. You won't mind that because you and she are two, now." "Can you tell me, Ross, how long you have been eating my bread?" "I suppose I could." "Or how much you have drank of my wine?" "I haven't made a calculation of that nature. It isn't usual." "For shooting here, how much have you ever contributed?" "When I shoot I contribute nothing. All the world understands that." "How much money do you owe me?" "I owe you nothing that I've ever promised to pay." "And now you think it a sign of a fine gentleman to go and talk openly at a club about matters which you have heard from me in confidence! I don't. I think it a very--" "A very what, Sir Francis? I have not done as you allege. But you were going to observe a very--; what was it?" It must be here explained that Dick Ross was not a man who feared many things; but that Sir Francis feared much. Dick had little to lose by a row, whereas the Baronet would be injured. The Baronet therefore declined to fill in the epithet which he had omitted. He knew from former experience what Dick would and what he would not bear. "I don't choose to descend to Billingsgate," said Sir Francis. "I have my own ideas as to your conduct." "Very gentlemanlike, isn't it?" said Dick, with a smile, meaning thereby to impute it to Sir Francis as cowardice that he was unwilling to say the reverse. "But, under all the circumstances, it will be quite as well that you should leave the Lodge. You must feel that yourself." "Oh; quite so. I am delighted to think that I shall be able to leave without having had any unpleasant words. Perhaps to-morrow will do?" "Just as you please." "Then I shall be able to add a few drops to all those buckets of claret which you threw in my teeth just now. I wonder whether any gentleman was ever before asked by another gentleman how much wine he had drank in his house, or how many dinners he had eaten. When you asked me did you expect me to pay for my dinners and wine?" Sir Francis refused to make any reply to this question. "And when you delicately hinted at my poverty, had you found my finances to be lower than you'd always known them? It is disagreeable to be a penniless younger brother. I have found it so all my life. And I admit that I ought to have earned my bread. It would have been much better for me had I done so. People may declare that I am good for nothing, and may hold me up as an example to be shunned. But I flatter myself that nobody has called me a blackguard. I have told no lies to injure men behind their backs;--much less have I done so to injure a woman. I have sacrificed no girl to my revenge, simply because she has thrown me over. In the little transactions I have had I have always run straight. Now I think that upon the whole I had better go before dinner, and not add anything to the bucket of claret."