because he is big and strong, and drinks beer with impunity, and takes a
cold shower bath all the year round. There is far too much glorification
in England, just now, of the mere physical qualities which an Englishman
shares with the savage and the brute. And the ill results are beginning
to show themselves already! We are readier than we ever were to practice
all that is rough in our national customs, and to excuse all that is
violent and brutish in our national acts. Read the popular books--attend
the popular amusements; and you will find at the bottom of them all a
lessening regard for the gentler graces of civilized life, and a growing
admiration for the virtues of the aboriginal Britons!"

Arnold listened in blank amazement. He had been the innocent means
of relieving Sir Patrick's mind of an accumulation of social protest,
unprovided with an issue for some time past. "How hot you are over it,
Sir!" he exclaimed, in irrepressible astonishment.

Sir Patrick instantly recovered himself. The genuine wonder expressed in
the young man's face was irresistible.

"Almost as hot," he said, "as if I was cheering at a boat-race, or
wrangling over a betting-book--eh? Ah, we were so easily heated when
I was a young man! Let's change the subject. I know nothing to the
prejudice of your friend, Mr. Delamayn. It's the cant of the day," cried
Sir Patrick, relapsing again, "to take these physically-wholesome men
for granted as being morally-wholesome men into the bargain. Time will
show whether the cant of the day is right.--So you are actually coming
back to Lady Lundie's after a mere flying visit to your own property? I
repeat, that is a most extraordinary proceeding on the part of a landed
gentleman like you. What's the attraction here--eh?"