hands and kissing them gallantly). George is perfectly right, dear
soul. Our Peregrine requires a naked mauley (clenches Aunt Julia's
white hand into a fist)--something like this, only bigger and
harder--applied to his torso--

UNCLE GEORGE. Of course, above the belt, you'll understand, Julia! Now
the Camberwell Chicken--

MY UNCLE JERVAS. Applied, I say, with sufficient force to awake him to
the stern--shall we say the harsh realities of life.

AUNT JULIA. Life can be real without sordid brutality.

UNCLE JERVAS. Not unless one is blind and deaf, or runs away and hides
from his fellows like a coward; for brutality, alas, is a very human
attribute and slumbers more or less in each one of us, let us deny it
how we will.

UNCLE GEORGE. True enough, Jervas, and as you'll remember when I
fought the "Camberwell Chicken," my right ogle being closed and claret
flowing pretty freely, the crowd afraid of their money--

MY AUNT (coldly determined). Enough! My nephew shall never experience
such horrors or consort with such brutish ruffians.

UNCLE GEORGE. Then he'll never be a man, Julia.

MY AUNT. Nature made him that. I intend him for a poet.

Here my uncle George rose up, sat down and rose again, striving for