It was so long since he had spoken to me of his own accord that I paused in my scraping to stare at him. Then, with my natural readiness at that sort of thing, I drew his attention to his bad manners earlier in the afternoon by baldly answering “Eh?” “I wonder you stand it,” he said, taking no notice of the little lesson. “Pray will you tell me how it is to be helped?” I inquired. “Roast goose does not, I have observed, grow on the hedges in your country.” (This, I felt, was an excellent retort.) “But it flourishes in London and other big towns,” said he--a foolish thing to say to a man sitting in the back yard of Frogs’ Hole Farm. “Have a cigarette,” he added; and he pushed his case toward me. I lit one, slightly surprised at the change for the better in his behaviour, and he got up and came and sat on the vacant camp-stool beside me. “Hunger,” said I, continuing the conversation, “is the best sauce, and as I am constantly hungry it follows that I cannot complain of not having enough sauce. In fact, I am beginning to feel that gipsying is a very health-giving pursuit.” “Damp--damp,” said Menzies-Legh, shaking his head and screwing up his mouth in a disapproval that astonished me. “What?” I said. “It may be a little damp if the weather is damp, but one must get used to hardships.” “Only to find,” said he, “that one’s constitution has been undermined.” “What?” said I, unable to understand this change of attitude. “Undermined for life,” said he, impressively. “My dear sir, I have heard you myself, under the most adverse circumstances, repeatedly remark that it was healthy and jolly.” “My dear Baron,” said he, “I am not like you. Neither Jellaby, nor I, nor Browne either, for that matter, has your physique. We are physically, compared to you--to be quite frank--mere weeds.” “Oh, come now, my dear sir, I cannot permit you--you undervalue--of slighter build, perhaps, but hardly----” “It is true. Weeds. Mere weeds. And my point is that we, accordingly, are not nearly so likely as you are to suffer in the long run from the privations and exposure of a bad-weather holiday like this.” “Well now, you must pardon me if I entirely fail to see----” “Why, my dear Baron, it’s as plain as daylight. Our constitutions will not be undermined for the shatteringly good reason that we have none to undermine.” My hearers will agree that, logically, the position was incontrovertible, and yet I doubted. Observing my silence, and probably guessing its cause, he took up an empty glass and poured some tea into it from the teapot at which Frau von Eckthum had been slaking her thirst in spite of my warnings (I had, alas, no right to forbid) that so much tea drinking would make her still more liable to start when suddenly addressed. “Look here,” said he. I looked. “You can see this tea.” “Certainly.”