“He said it with some bitterness, and no doubt it contains the real germ of truth. The mode of putting it, however, is neither delicate nor respectful. I hinted as much, and then I heard the tin can rattle again, ‘It’s not for a man i’ the shape you’re in, Sir Clifford, to twit me for havin’ a cod atween my legs.’

“These things, said indiscriminately to all and sundry, of course do not help him at all, and the rector, and Linley, and Burroughs all think it would be as well if the man left the place.

“I asked him if it was true that he entertained ladies down at the cottage, and all he said was: ‘Why, what’s that to you, Sir Clifford?’ I told him I intended to have decency observed on my estate, to which he replied: ‘Then you mun button the mouths o’ a’ th’ women.’ When I pressed him about his manner of life at the cottage, he said: ‘Surely you might ma’e a scandal out o’ me an’ my bitch Flossie. You’ve missed summat there.’ As a matter of fact, for an example of impertinence, he’d be hard to beat.