What I mean to know is, do they any of them appreciate the distinction between a Whig (or, as Mr Riddell terms it, a Liberal)--" Riddell winced.
"-- Between a Whig and a Radical ?" "Oh, certainly not," replied Bloomfield, wildly.

"And yet you say that they decidedly attached a true importance to the issue of the contest?
That is very extraordinary!" And Mrs Patrick rose majestically to take her seat at the table, leaving Bloomfield writhing and turned mentally inside out, to recover as best he could from this interesting political discussion! "The Rockshire match was a great triumph," said the doctor, cheerily, as the company established itself at the festive board--"and a surprise too, surely--was it not ?" "Yes, sir," said Fairbairn, who, seeing that Bloomfield was not yet in a condition to discourse, felt it incumbent on him to reply--"we never expected to win by so much." "It was quite an event," said the doctor, "the heads of the three houses all playing together in the same eleven." "Yes, sir," replied Fairbairn, "Bloomfield here was most impartial." Bloomfield said something which sounded like "Not at all." "I was especially glad to see the Welchers coming out again," said the doctor, with a friendly nod to Riddell.
"Yes," said Fairbairn, who appeared to be alarmingly at his ease; "and Welch's did good service too; that catch of Riddell's saved us a wicket or two, didn't it, Bloomfield ?" "Yes," replied Bloomfield.
"Was Rockshire a specially weak team this year ?" asked the doctor.
"I don't think so, sir," replied Fairbairn, politely handing the toast to Miss Stringer as he spoke; "but they evidently weren't so well together as our men." "And what, Mr Fairbairn," asked Miss Stringer at this point, in her most stately tones--"what, pray, is the exact meaning of the expression `well together,' as applied to a company of youths ?" Bloomfield and Riddell groaned inwardly for their comrade.

They had seen what was coming, and had marked his rash approach to the mouth of the volcano with growing apprehension.

They had been helpless to hold him back, and now his turn was come--he had met his fate.
So, at least, they imagined.

What, then, was their amazement when he turned not a hair at the question, but replied, stirring his tea complacently as he did so, "You see, each of the Rockshire men may have been a good cricketer, and yet if they had not been used to playing together, as our fellows have been, we should have a decided pull on them." Miss Stringer regarded the speaker critically.