"You don't have a dinner like this every day, I'm sure, John--French menu and all," said Mrs. Burtenshaw. "I should like the recipe for that consommé à la Wanderobbo."
"What is à la Wanderobbo?" asked Helen.
"I don't know," replied John. "That little old man you saw just now is one of the Wanderobbo tribe."
"Good gracious! I hope he had nothing to do with the soup. He looked--well, not scrupulously clean."
"No, no," said John, laughing. "He had no more to do with the soup than Lulu had with the cauliflowers--unless she cut them. Talking of Bill, Mr. Gillespie, what are we to do about his ivory? It has been his dream for years to recover it, but when we got back he made me a present of it."
"Just like a man," said Mrs. Burtenshaw. "You'll struggle all your life and wear yourselves out for some ridiculous thing, and when you get it don't know what to do with it."
"It's what you do that counts, not what you get," remarked Mr. Halliday: "or as our failed B.A. said when we met him first, it is work that ennobles. But about the ivory?"
"Well," said Mr. Gillespie judicially, "I'm not sure but it belongs to the Government."
"I don't see that," said Joe Browne. "The Government did nothing for it. Didn't do anything for you, either. I'd stick to it if I were you, John. What will it fetch?"
"Five or six hundred pounds, I should think," said Mr. Gillespie.