"You forget, Baron," replied De Herbert, with a deprecatory gesture--"you
forget that there is no system of telegraphy by which you could be
reached. I may be poor, sir, but I'm just as much of a baron as you are,
and I will take the liberty of saying right here, in what would be the
shadow of your beard, if you had one, sir, that a man who insists on
receiving cable messages when no such things exist is rather rushing
business."
"Pardon my haste, Peddlington, old chap," returned the baron, softening.
"You are quite right. My desire was unreasonable; but I swear to you, by
all my ancestral Bangletops, that I am hungry as a pit full of bears, and
if there's one thing I can't eat, it is lobster and apples. Can't you
scare up a snack of bread and cheese and a little cold larded fillet? If
you'll supply the fillet, I'll provide the cold."
At this sally the Baron of Peddlington laughed and the quarrel was over.
But none the less the master of Bangletop went to bed hungry; nor could he
do any better in the morning at breakfast-time.
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