I swore her to secresy; she was not to tell her brother Charley the subject we conversed on.
'Oh dear, no!' said she, and told him straightway.
Charley, home for his winter holidays, blurted out at the squire's table: 'So, Harry Richmond, you're the cleverest fellow in the world, are you?
There's Janet telling everybody your father's the cleverest next to you, and she's never seen him!' 'How?
hulloa, what 's that ?' sang out the squire.
'Charley was speaking of my father, sir,' I said, preparing for thunder.
We all rose.

The squire looked as though an apoplectic seizure were coming on.
'Don't sit at my table again,' he said, after a terrible struggle to be articulate.
His hand was stretched at me.

I swung round to depart.

'No, no, not you; that fellow,' he called, getting his arm level toward Charley.
I tried to intercede--the last who should have done it.
'You like to hear him, eh ?' said the squire.
I was ready to say that I did, but my aunt, whose courage was up when occasion summoned it, hushed the scene by passing the decanter to the squire, and speaking to him in a low voice.
'Biter's bit.

I've dished myself, that's clear,' said Charley; and he spoke the truth, and such was his frankness that I forgave him.
He and Janet were staying at Riversley.