ersonal? I'm talking of you as a class. Contempt is in your blood--and
quite right! We're such snobs, we deserve it. Why d'ye think I ever
took to you as a boy at school? Was it because you scribbled inaccurate
sonatas and I had myself a talent for knocking tunes off the piano? Not
a bit of it. I thought it was, perhaps, but that was only one of my many
youthful errors. No, I liked you because your father was an old English
baronet, and mine was a merchant who trafficked mainly in things
Teutonic. And that's why I like you still. 'Pon my soul it is. You
gratify my historic sense--like an old building. You are picturesque.
You stand to me for all the good old ideals, including the pride which we
are beginning to see is deuced unchristian. Mind you, it's a curious
kind of pride when one looks into it. Apparently it's based on the fact
that your family has lived on the nation for generations. And yet you
won't take my cheque, which is your own. Now don't swear--I know one
mustn't analyse things, or the world would come to pieces, so I always
vote Tory."

"Then I shall have to turn Radical," grumbled Lancelot.

"Certainly you will, when you have had a little more experience of
poverty," retorted Peter. "There, there, old man! forgive me. I only do
it to annoy you. Fact is, your outbursts of temper attract me. They are
pleasant to look back upon when the storm is over. Yes, my dear
Lancelot, you are like the king you look--you can do no wrong. You are
picturesque. Pass the whisky."

Lancelot smiled, his handsome brow serene once more. He murmured, "Don't
talk rot," but inwardly he was not displeased at Peter's allegiance, half
mocking though he knew it.

"Therefore, my dear chap," resumed Peter, sipping his whisky and water,
"to return to our lambs, I bow to your patrician prejudices in favour of
forks. But your patriotic prejudices are on a different level. There, I
am on the same ground as you, and I vow I see nothing inherently superior
in the British combination of beef and beetroot, to the German amalgam of
lamb and jam."

"Damn lamb and jam," burst forth Lancelot, adding, with his whimsical
look: "There's rhyme, as well as reason. How on earth did we get on this
tack?"

"I don't know," said Peter, smiling. "We were talking about Frau
Sauer-Kraut, I think. And did you board with her all the time?"

"Yes, and I was always hungry. Till the last, I never learnt to stomach
her mixtures.