'I am a young man from the country,' I said to him. 'To what theatre is your histrionic friend attached? I should like to see him in a better farce than this.'
'Do you hear that, De Castro?' said the other. 'What is your theatre?'
'If he is really excited,' I said, 'tell him that people at a public supper-room should speak in a moderate tone or their conversation is likely to be overheard.'
'Do you hear this young man from the country, De Castro?' said he. 'You seem to be the Oraculum of the hay-fields, sir,' he continued, turning to me with a delightfully humorous expression on his face. 'Have you any other Delphic utterance?'
'Only this,' I said, 'that people who do not like being given the lie should tell the truth.'
'May I be permitted to guess your Christian name, sir? Is it Martin, perchance?'
'Yes,' I replied, 'and my surname is Tupper.' He then got up and laid his hand on the _raconteur's_ shoulder, and said, 'Don't be a fool, De Castro. When a man looks at another as the author of the _Proverbial Philosophy_ is looking at you, he knows that he can use his fists as well as his pen.'
'I did, and I thought the gift as entirely gratuitous, _mon cher_, as giving a scuttleful of coals to Newcastle.'
The anecdote-monger stood silent, quelled by this man's voice.
Then turning to me, the man of the musical voice said, 'I suppose you know something about my friend Lady Sinfi?'
'I do,' I said, 'and I am Cyril Aylwin's kinsman, whom you call his cousin, so perhaps, as every word your friend has said about Sinfi Lovell and me is false, you will allow me to call him a liar.'
A look of the greatest glee at the discomfiture of his companion overspread his face.
'Certainly,' he said with a loud laugh. 'You may call him that, you may even qualify the noun you have used with an adjective if the author of the _Proverbial Philosophy_ can think of one that is properly descriptive and yet not too unparliamentary. So you are Cyril Aylwin's kinsman. I have heard him,' he said, with a smile that he tried in vain to suppress, 'I have heard Cyril expatiate on the various branches of the Aylwin family.'
The twinkle in his eye made me adore him as he said--'The proud Aylwins. A man who, in a world like this, is proud and knows it, and is proud of confessing his pride, always interests me, but I will not ask you what makes the proud Aylwins proud, sir.'