"Of course not; but you'll excuse me if I don't yet see—"
"To be sure you don't until I have explained. Well, you see, men are so particular about what they eat and drink, and are always thinking about it—I don't mean poets, of course. I suppose you, for instance, only think about gossamer and things."
"I don't know that I think much about gossamer," said Mr. Moggridge.
"Well, moonbeams, then. But Fred is different. Ever since he left Chicago he has been talking about that tea. I wonder you never heard him."
"I have not, to my knowledge."
"No? Well, at last, finding it couldn't be bought in England, he sent across for a chest. We had the invoice a few days ago, and here it is."
Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys produced a scrap of paper, and went on—
"You see, it's coming in a ship called the Maryland, and ought to be here about this time. Well, Fred was looking through his telescope before breakfast this morning—he's always looking through a telescope now, and knows, I believe, every rig of every vessel in the world—when he calls out, 'Hullo! American barque!' in his short way. Of course, I didn't know at first what he meant, and mixed it up with that stuff—Peruvian bark, isn't it?—that you give to your child, if you have one, and do not let it untimely die, or something of the sort. But afterwards he shouted, 'I shouldn't wonder if she's the Maryland;' and then I understood, and it struck me that it would be so nice to come to you and pay the 'duty,' or whatever you call it, on the tea, and at the same time, if you were very good, you would take me over the ship with you, and show me how you did your work. It's very complicated, I daresay: but I'll be quiet as a mouse, and won't interrupt you at all."
She paused for breath. The Collector smiled, and handed back the invoice.
"It seems all right," he said. "Let us hurry to the Custom House. An hour in your company, Geraldine, will transfigure even the dull round of duty."