Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/108

 people? It's the verse about fishing the murex up, and it ends: 'What porridge had John Keats?'"

"It crossed my mind, as I listened to you and Stranleigh, that Chesterton shows how easy it is to make us all seem stupid and ignorant. You made Stranleigh look rather a fool."

"Well, Sir George, he exasperates me sometimes by asking questions that any urchin on the street could answer."

"'What porridge had John Keats?'" mused Sir George. "That question takes on a new meaning for me. Porridge is a kind of granular food, I understand, softened by heat and moisture, much favoured in the north."

"Because of its cheapness," snapped Corbitt.

"I daresay; and there is oat-cake. I tried it once at a pinch, while on a shooting excursion. It was about as hard as cast-iron and delicious as baked sawdust. Now, you were brought up on these two foods."

"I admit it," said Corbitt. "Proud of it."

"Yes; a man has a right to be proud of such endurance, but did you ever suspect that something of the hardness of oat-cake may have got into your nature?"

"It is quite possible. I hope so."