They
both went on hands and knees to pick them up, and there was much
laughing and whispering.
It is curious that I cannot recall Pasquale having alluded, in
Carlotta's presence, to our early days. It was on my tongue to
ask when he committed the mendacity--for in that school not only
did the assistant masters not have the power of the cane, but
Pasquale, being in the sixth form at the time I joined, was
exempt from corporal punishment--when they both rose flushed from
their grovelling beneath the table, and some merry remark from
Pasquale put the question out of my head.
All this is unimportant. The main result of Pasquale's visit
this evening is a discovery.
Now, is it, after all, a discovery, or only the non-moral
intellect's sinister attribution of motives?
"A baby in long clothes would have seen through it," said
Pasquale. "Lord bless you, if I were in your position I would go
on board that yacht, I'd make violent love to every female there,
like the gentleman in Mr. Wycherley's comedy, I'd fill a salmon
fly-book with samples of their hair, I'd make them hate one
another like poison, and at the end of the voyage I'd announce my
engagement to Carlotta, and when they all came to the wedding I'd
make the fly-book the most conspicuous of wedding presents on the
table, from the bridegroom to the bride.
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