"Oh yes, we know," interrupts Roger, most unfeelingly.
"Well, in the early dawn," continues Dicky, quite unmoved, "when the little birds were singing, I used to think I could be happy as General Sir Richard Browne, at the head of a gallant corps, with a few darkies in the foreground fleeing before my trusty blade. By breakfast time, however, all that would be changed, and I would glory in the belief that one day would see me seated on the wool-sack. By dinnertime I was clothed in sanctimonious lawn; and long before the small hours, I felt myself a second Drake, starting to conquer another Armada, only one even more Invincible."
They all laugh at him. And then he laughs at himself, and seems, indeed, to enjoy the joke even more than they do.
"I don't care," he says, at length, valiantly; "no, not a single screw. I haven't done anything, you know."
"Oh yes, you have, a lot in your time," murmurs Roger, supportingly.
"But I must come in for the title and the estate when the old boy, my cousin, 'shuffles off this mortal coil,' and in the meantime the governor stands to me decently enough, and I'm pretty jolly all round."
"Tell us about Stephen Gower," says Dulce, after a pause, "He interests me, I don't know why. What is he like?"
"He is
'A greenery yallery
Grosvenor gallery
Foot-in-the-grave young man.'"
quotes Dicky, gaily.