"This is what I am, Miss Carnaby. I am one husband, three fathers, nine grandfathers and seventeen godfathers—thirty gentlemen in one, so ten times better than Cerberus. And what it costs me in presents is something fabulous."
Isabel turned to Lord Wrexham. "When are you shy?"
"Always. I invariably feel that I am boring people, and this makes me bore them all the more."
"And you, Uncle Benjamin?"
"When I go out shooting, my dear. I am a bad shot at best; and, knowing this, I am consequently generally at my worst."
"My governor is a first-rate shot," announced Lord Robert proudly. "I know no young man who is equal to him; but I'm a poor hand at the job myself. Now-a-days fathers shoot better than their sons, as a rule, I think; a proof of the decadence of the race. (That's a good sentence! I shall wait till you have all forgotten it, and then make use of it again.) Does your father shoot much?" he inquired, turning to Paul.
Paul smiled. "My father is a Methodist minister," he said, "so he knows nothing about sport."
"Dear me, how queer!" exclaimed Ethel Gordon, looking at Paul with as much curiosity as if he had said his father was a giraffe; but Lord Robert came to the rescue. "I've got an uncle in that line of business," he remarked airily, "at least he is a bishop; and he is the best old chap I ever met in my life—a regular saint, don't you know? I daresay your governor is the same."
"He is a good man," answered Paul simply.
"So is my Uncle Ambrose; and there is nothing like it after all. It takes time, you bet, to be as good as that; but it pays in the long run. I wish you knew my uncle; you'd like him. He gives away everything he has to charity, and he really cares for nothing in the world but how to make other folks better and happier. He is the Bishop of Ditchester."