"You remind me of no one so much as Sothern," goes on Sir Penthony, warming to his theme. "If you went on the stage you would make your fortune. But don't dream of acting, you know; go in for being yourself, pure and simple,—plain, unvarnished Plantagenet Potts,—and I venture to say you will take London by storm. The British public would go down before you like corn before the reaper."
"Well, but your story,—your story, Plantagenet," Lady Stafford cries, impatiently.
"Did you hear the story about my mother and——"
"Potts," interrupts Stafford, mildly but firmly, "if you are going to tell the story about your mother and the auctioneer I shall leave the room. It will be the twenty-fifth time I have heard it already, and human patience has a limit. One must draw the line somewhere."
"What auctioneer?" demands Potts, indignant. "I am going to tell them about my mother and the auction; I never said a word about an auctioneer; there mightn't have been one, for all I know."
"There generally is at an auction," ventures Luttrell, mildly. "Go on, Potts; I like your stories immensely, they are so full of wit and spirit. I know this one, about your mother's bonnet, well; it is an old favorite,—quite an heirloom—the story, I mean, not the bonnet. I remember so distinctly the first time you told it to us at mess: how we did laugh, to be sure! Don't forget any of the details. The last time but four you made the bonnet pink, and it must have been so awfully unbecoming to your mother! Make it blue to-night."
"Now do go on, Mr. Potts; I am dying to hear all about it," declares Molly.
"Well, when my uncle died," begins Potts, "all his furniture was sold by auction. And there was a mirror in the drawing-room my mother had always had a tremendous fancy for——"
"'And my mother was always in the habit of wearing a black bonnet,'" quotes Sir Penthony, gravely. "I know it by heart."
"If you do you may as well tell it yourself," says Potts, much offended.