"Oh!" rather grandly, "I sent my butler over, and lots of flowers."
"If we were all to do that, I wonder 'what like it would be,' as they say in your native land, Reid?" remarked Dr. Malone. "And where is Green?"
"Out fishing with Lisle," replied Captain Rodney. "And, ahem! talk of angels, here they come," as at this moment a sailing-boat suddenly shot round a point and made for the pier.
"I've not seen Lisle for weeks!" remarked Dr. Malone; "not since the picnic on Mount Harriet. What has he been up to?"—to Mr. Quentin.
"Oh! he only enjoys society by fits and starts, and a little of it goes a long way with him."
"Hullo, you fellows!" hailed the doctor, leaning half his long body over the railings, "any luck?"
"Luck? I should just think so!" returned Lisle, standing up. "Two bottle-nosed sharks, a conger-eel, a sword-fish, and any quantity of sea-monsters, name and tribe unknown."
"Is that all?"
"No, not all. Green caught about a dozen crabs going out."
"Oh! now I say," expostulated Mr. Green, a fair young subaltern about six months from Sandhurst, "it was those beastly oars."