‘Nonsense,’ said Jim, with a good-humoured laugh. ‘You read so well. I’ve got no knack. It is only that a few of these things get over me somehow. Because--because they are mere stories and of no consequence.’ ‘Plowden,’ said the curate. ‘Yes?’ ‘I wonder if you’d be dreadfully offended if I asked you one thing?’ ‘I am not very peppery,’ said Jim; ‘fire away?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I will, but you will be angry, I fear. It is just this. When you feel these things so, more than most people--more,’ he added, with a naïve surprise, ‘than I do myself; how is it, you know--that--I don’t want to offend you--how is it that----’ Jim’s countenance grew deeply red, a cloud came over it for a moment; then he shook his head as if to shake off any consideration of such questions. ‘I say, don’t ask me that kind of conundrum. I’m not good at guessing things,’ he said. ‘Will the “Ride” do?’ ‘The “Ride” will do capitally,’ said the curate. He too shook off with a flush the questions which had risen involuntarily to his lips. He was grateful to Jim for passing it over, for neither taking offence in words nor jumping up and breaking off the conference. ‘What sort of people do you think will come,’ he said, ‘since you seem to have experience of these things?’ ‘Oh!’ said Jim, ‘a number of the village people will come--the daughters of the tradespeople, and those shifting folks that live in Pleasant Place, and a number of the “gentry”--the General----’ Mr. Osborne made a sign of impatience and dissatisfaction. ‘Don’t you want the gentry to come? But the others like it. I assure you they do. Mrs. White and Mrs. Slaughter will not come, they are too grand. They’re able to pay for their pleasure when they make up their minds to go out.’ Jim said this with a gleam of Florry’s mimicry, which discomposed the curate more than he could say. ‘You seem to know all about it,’ he cried, a little sharply. ‘But I want the men from Riverside, the fellows from the boats. I don’t want ladies and gentlemen. What I want is to keep the men from the public-house. Do you mean to say the same sort of thing has been done here before?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said Jim, ‘we have done it before; but I don’t think we got any of the Riverside men. The people who come generally are--well, just the village people, Osborne, the people you know, particularly the women and the Sunday School lads, those that my sisters teach carving to, and so forth; and the ones that come to the night-school.’ ‘Ah!’ said the curate, ‘that is always something,’ with a sigh of relief. ‘And all that my mother calls the nice, respectable people,’ said Jim, with a laugh, destroying the momentary good effect he had produced. The curate put his face in his hands, and was silent for a minute. ‘So that I have been taking all this trouble,’ he said, ‘and getting people to come over from Winwick, and laying myself under obligations--to amuse the old women--and the gentry, as you call them.’