’Oh nothing, nothing at all! I don’t stoop to take offence at her.’ Then, observing that the young man resented this disparagement of his sister, she added hastily, ’There, enough of her. She’s good enough to wash and comb the little uns and patch their clothes. We will talk about yourself, as the fox said to the goose, when she axed him if duck weren’t more tasty. Why have you come from the Revel? There be some better reason than an empty pocket.’ ’I have been insulted.’ ’Of course you have,’ said Mrs. Veale, ’and I know the reason. The young men here can’t abide you. For why? Because you’re too much of a gentleman, you’re too high for ’em. As the churchyard cross said to the cross on the spire, "Us can’t talk wi’out shouting." Do you know what the poacher as was convicted said to the justice o’ peace? "I’m not in a position, your worship, to punch your head, but I can spit on your shadow."’ ’Without any boasting, I may admit that I and these young clodhopping louts ain’t of the same sort,’ said Charles proudly. ’That’s just what the urchin (hedgehog) said to the little rabbits when he curled up in their nest.’ ’Ah!’ laughed Charles, ’but the urchin had quills and could turn the rabbits out, and I have not.’ ’You’ve been in the army, and that gives a man bearing, and you’ve been half over the world, and that gives knowledge; and nature have favoured you with good looks. The lads are jealous of you.’ ’They do not appreciate me, certainly,’ said Charles, swelling with self-importance. ’This is a wicked world,’ said Mrs. Veale. Then she produced a bottle of gin and a glass, and put them at Charles’s elbow. ’Take a drop of comfort,’ she said persuasively, ’though for such as you it should be old crusted port and not the Plymouth liquor, as folks say is distilled from turnips.’ Young Luxmore needed no pressing; he helped himself. ’I reckon,’ pursued Mrs. Veale, ’you were done out of Coombe Park by those who didn’t scruple to swear it away. Money and law together will turn the best rights topsy-turvy.’ ’No doubt about that, ma’am,’ said Charles. ’I’ve heard my father say, many a time, that with a hundred pounds he could win Coombe Park back.’ ’Then why do you not lay out the hundred pounds?’ ’Because I haven’t got ’em,’ answered Charles. ’Oh! they’re to be got,’ said the housekeeper, ’as the gipsy said to his wife when she told ’n she were partial to chickens.’ ’It seems to me,’ said the young man, ’that it is a hard world for them that is straight. The crooked ones have the best of it.’ ’Not at all,’ answered the housekeeper. ’The crooked ones can’t go through a straight hole. It is they who can bend about like the ferret as gets on best, straight or crooked as suits the occasion.’