"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop. "Is all this trouble about Penelope Brading, whom I also christened?"
"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"
"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me," said the bishop. "In the meantime, Mr. Dean, I beg you to exercise patience with the French nobleman on the grass. Come, Bob."
"Well, it's awful rot, you know," said Bob, speaking very rapidly. "We don't know where we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on a sofa screaming."
"Why, Bob?"
"You must have heard of it."
The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.
"Pen says she's married and has a kid," said Bob, "and she won't say who it is. And all these jossers, including Plant, he's the American over there, and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had married her themselves. Do you see, sir,—my lord, I mean?"
"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips together. "It was, I think, very noble of them."
"But granny said it was very trying, and it made her ill, for she wasn't any further than before, unless Pen had married them all. And grandfather, who kept cool, said that was unlikely."