“How tiresome that Will Jeffreys is getting!” remarked Ethel that evening, as some of them were standing outside in the garden. “Listen to him prosing away in there.”
“Ssh! He’ll hear you,” said Laura.
“I don’t much care. He comes over to see us, and instead of trying to amuse one he bores us with tiresome yarns about this Dutchman losing his cows and that Dutchman finding his horses.”
“But what on earth do you want him to tell you about?” asked Hicks.
“Why, some of the news, of course. The gossip, scandal, engagements, and so forth.”
“But he don’t know anything about that sort of thing, so how can he tell you about it?” said Hicks.
“Oh, you’re just as bad. Do go and join him and hear about Dirk van Heerden’s cows. Please take my part, Mr Claverton. Isn’t Will Jeffreys a bore?”
“Haven’t been long enough in his company to answer with any certainty. Will let you know later.”
“How provoking you are! Now I appeal to all of you. If you see me cornered by Will Jeffreys, come to the rescue.”
“The greatest bore I ever knew,” began Claverton, “was a lady—an elderly lady. She would volunteer instruction on any and every subject under heaven, from the precise length of Aaron’s beard, to the cost of soup-kitchens; and once she cornered you, you had to listen or pretend to. One day she cornered me. It was in the drawing-room, and there was no escape; but there was a clock opposite. It occurred to me to time her. For exactly twenty-one minutes she prosed on uninterruptedly, like a stream flowing over its bed; never stopped to take breath once. A sermon was a joke to it. Twenty-one minutes! Heaven knows how much longer she would have gone on, but for a lucky interruption.”