’Peshawur! Jelalabad! Cawbul! that’s how they come,’ said Charles. Mrs. Veale stood with hand on the handle of the pan, an iron spoon uplifted in the other, waiting to drink in further information. ’Through the Khyber Pass,’ he added, drawing his brows together and screwing up his mouth. ’No doubt about it,’ said Mrs. Veale. ’It must be so, if you sez it. And Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ She stirred the pot; then, thinking she had not made herself intelligible, she explained, ’I mean that Solomon, though the wisest of men, didn’t know that, I reckon.’ ’How could he,’ asked Charles, ’never having been there?’ ’I do wonder, now, if you’ll excuse the remark,’ said the housekeeper, ’that you didn’t bring the silver belt here and hang it up over the mantel-shelf.’ ’Silver belt? What silver belt?’ ’Oh! you know. The champion wrestler’s belt that is to be tried for this afternoon. I suppose you didn’t go in for it because you thought it wouldn’t be fair on the young chaps here to take from them everything.’ ’I did not consider it worth my while trying for it,’ said Charles, with a kick at the hearth with his toes—not an irritated kick, but a flattered, self-satisfied, pleased kick. ’Of course I could have had it if I had tried.’ ’Of course you might, you who’ve been a soldier in the wars, and fought them blood-thirsty Afghans, Lord! I reckon they was like Goliaths of Gath, the weight of whose spear was as a weaver’s beam.’ Charles jerked his head knowingly. ’Afghanistan was a hard nut to crack.’ ’Ah!’ acquiesced Mrs. Veale. ’So said old Goodie as she mumbled pebbles.’ Then she stood up and looked at him. ’I know a fine man when I see him,’ she said, ’able to hold himself like the best gentleman, and walking with his head in the air as if the country belonged to him.’ ’Ah!’ said Charles, taking off his hat and sitting erect, ’if all men had their rights Coombe Park would be ours.’ ’Don’t I know that?’ asked the housekeeper. ’Everyone knows that. Nobody can look at you without seeing you’re a gentleman born. And I say it is a shame and a sin that you should be kicked out of your proper nest, and it the habitation of strangers, cuckoos who never built it, but have turned out the rightful owners. I reckon it made me turn scarlet as your sister’s cloak to see her come crawling here t’other day on bended knees to ask the master to take you in. She’s no lady, not got a drop of blue blood in her veins, or she’d not ha’ done that. I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Charles. All the gentle blood has run one way and all the vulgar blood the other, as in our barton field the sweet water comes out at the well, and the riddam (ferruginous red water) at the alders.’ She spoke with such acrimony, and with a look so spiteful, that Charles asked, ’What has Honor done to offend you?’