"I say, Pen, I say, Pen, there's old Goby coming, and with that miserable rotter who makes poetry. What's brought 'em here?"
"I asked them to lunch," said Pen.
"Eh, what?" cried Bob. "Goby and that rotter, Austin de Vere! I say, Mr. Guthrie—"
He ran off to Guthrie, bawling:
"I say, Mr. Guthrie, here's that poet chap, Austin de Vere, come. Didn't you say he mostly wrote rot?"
And Goby and De Vere came across the lawn together, like a mastiff and a Maltese in company. They made each other as nervous as cats, and couldn't for their lives understand why they were asked together.
"The clumsy brute," said De Vere.
"The verse-making monkey," said Goby.
But tailors could have admired them both. They were perfect. And lunch was a most painful function, only endurable to Penelope because she was on the track of her duty, and to Chloe because she laughed internally, and to Mr. Guthrie (who was really a clever man) because he liked to study men and manners, and to Bob because he talked all the time, owing to the silence of the others.
"I say, Captain Goby, I've got a splendid bull-pup. Baker got him for me, cheap, for a quid,—a sovereign, I mean. You remember Baker. He was a sergeant,—oh, I told you that just now. Do you like bulldogs, Mr. de Vere?"