At intervals, “I have made a very good breakfast, now,” he would say. “Now I will try to find what Bill has written in this terrible paper.”
But thrice Mrs. Wyvern lovingly checked him. “Dear William, no. You have hardly touched your sole. You must finish it, dear, every scrap, before you look at the paper. You have been eating such good breakfasts lately. Now, please, William, finish it first.”
“It is as big as a shark,” the Professor grumbles, making shots with his trembling fork.
“Dear William, it is a very small sole.”
At last he has finished. A line catches his eye as he unfolds the Daily, and he chuckles: “Oh, dear! This is a very horrible paper. 'Actress and Stockbroker—Piccadilly by night.'”
“Dear William, we only want to read what Bill has written. An interview, he tells us, with—”
Dear William waggles his naughty old head over the actress and the stockbroker; shaky fingers unfold the centre pages; nose runs up one column and down another, then suddenly starts back burnt by the flaring “Country House Outrage.”
“Dearest! Dearest! Whatever is the matter?”
But dearest is speechless. Dearest can only cough and choke and splutter in convulsions of mirth over some terrific joke of which he will tell Mrs. Wyvern no more than: “He has done it. Oh, dear! oh, dear! He has done it. Oh, dear! This will be very funny indeed!”