Sam groaned in spirit. On such a night as this young Troilus had climbed the walls of Troy and stood gazing at the Grecian tents where lay his Cressida, and he himself had got to go into a stuffy house and listen to a bore with a white beard drooling on about the mouldy past of a London suburb.
“Well, yes, I know; but——” he began doubtfully.
Kay laid a hand upon his arm.
“We can’t disappoint the poor old man,” she whispered. “He would take it to heart so.”
“Yes, but I mean——”
“No.”
He was going to make a good husband.
Mr. Cornelius was in the drawing-room. From under his thick white brows he peered at them, as they entered, with the welcoming eyes of a man who, loving the sound of his own voice, sees a docile audience assembling. He took from the floor a large brown paper parcel and, having carefully unfastened the string which tied it, revealed a second and lighter wrapping of brown paper. Removing this, he disclosed a layer of newspaper, then another, and finally a formidable typescript bound about with lilac ribbon.
“The matter having to do with the man Finglass occurs in Chapter Seven of my book,” he said.