His Grace — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

118 HIS GRACE. that I should think of troubling myself to drive all that distance for the privilege of seeing his unpleasant face again and listening to his unpleasant talk. Nor, I sin- cerely hope, will you do so, Arthur.” Well, it was probably not for the sake of the priv- ileges mentioned that Hurstbourne intended to go there and did .go there. I was more than doubtful whether his incentive was even the totally inadequate one which he was pleased to confide to me later in the evening. “JT rather flatter myself that I put Master Paul’s nose out of joint a bit to-day,” said he, with a mis- chievous chuckle. ‘‘He isn’t engaged to Miss St. George yet, and it’s not quite a thousand to one cer- tainty that he ever will be. It does that chap a lot of good to let him see that he isn’t absolutely invincible.” “But are you so very anxious to do him good?” I ventured to inquire. “I thought you weren’t par- ticularly fond of him. If you were, one might under- stand your sitting upon a stable-bucket and playing with fire. Doesn’t it strike you that, if you don’t mind what you’re about, you may find yourself engaged to Miss St. George one of these fine days? And don’t you think that, in that case, Mr. Gascoigne might have the laugh on his side?” Hurstbourne answered, “Oh, bosh!”’ and went out of the room, He has a happy knack of leaving the room when he can’t hit upon a rational rejoinder. Gomichoo <S (E(o) m