"Darling Joanna!" she shrieked. "Puffles, wicked, wicked boy, be quiet! Isn't this an invasion? But my Lewis did so want—I shall smack 'oo if 'oo isn't quiet directly. Do you mind this little brown boy, who goes everywhere with his mammy? I knew you'd love him if you saw him—but such a noise! Lewis, tell this naughty Puff his mother can't hear herself speak."
"Down, sir!" said Lewis, in tones which might have quelled a mastiff with hydrophobia.
Puff waddled for refuge to his mistress, who immediately gathered him on to her lap as she sank on to the sofa.
"Did 'oo daddy speak in a big rough voice, and frighten the poor little manikin?" she inquired solicitously. "Isn't he rather twee, Joanna?"
"I've not seen it before," said Joanna, in tones more civil than enthusiastic.
"It!" screamed Lesbia. "She calls 'oo it, my Puffles! as though he wasn't the sweetest little brown boy in the whole world. It! You've hurt his little feelings too dreadfully, my dear—look at him sulking!"
Puff had composed himself into a sort of dribbling torpor.
"That dog doesn't get enough exercise," said Major Willoughby suddenly, fixing his eyes upon his hostess.
"Surely it—he—is too small to require a great deal," said Lady Vivian languidly. Lap-dogs bored her very much indeed, and she turned away her eyes after taking one rather disgusted look at the recumbent Puff through her eyeglasses.
"Train up a dog in the way it should go. Now, this little fellah—you'd hardly believe it, Lady Vivian, if I were to tell you the difference in him after he's had a good run over the Common."