"By a singular coincidence, I have but this moment taken possession of them."
"Give them up, sir."
"I shall do nothing of the kind, sir."
At this point Sam was seized with the unlucky inspiration of quoting from Mr. Moggridge's published works:
"Forbid the flood to wet thy feet,
Or bind its wrath in chains;
But never seek to quench the heat
That fires a poet's veins!"
"Forbid the flood to wet thy feet,
Or bind its wrath in chains;
But never seek to quench the heat
That fires a poet's veins!"
This stanza, delivered with nice attention to its author's drawing-room manner, was too much.
"Sir, you are no gentleman!"
"You seem," retorted Sam, "to be an authority on manners as well as on Customs. I won't repeat your charge; but I'll be dashed if you're a poet!"
My Muse is in a very pretty pass. Gentlest of her sisterhood, she has wandered from the hum of Miss Limpenny's whist-table into the turmoil of Mars. Even as one who, strolling through a smiling champaign, finds suddenly a lion in his path, and to him straightway the topmost bough of the platanus is dearer than the mother that bare him—in short, I really cannot say how this history would have ended, had not Fortune at this juncture descended to the Club-room in form and speech like to Admiral Buzza.