“Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!”
“She’s a very nice girl.”
“She’s so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle.”
“Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting experiences. They are most interesting.”
Bream drifted sadly away.
“I don’t blame Miss Hubbard,” said Sam.
“What do you mean?”
“Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should like to do it myself.”
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about Bream. Read me some Tennyson.”
Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson! He was all right. He had the stuff. You could rely on him every time.