"What's the matter, Ninian?" Henry asked, as he sat down at the table.
Ninian, while searching for the notices of Gilbert's play, had seen a sentence in a serial story in one of the newspapers.... "Her hands fluttered helplessly over his breast" ... and he was trying to discover exactly what the lady had done with her hands. "She seems to have just flopped them about," he said, and he turned to Gilbert. "Look here, Gilbert," he said, "you try it. I'll clasp you in my arms as the hero clasped this female, and you'll let your hands flutter helplessly over my breast!"
"I'll let my fist flutter helplessly over your jaw, young Ninian!..."
"I don't believe she let her hands do anything of the sort," Ninian went on. "She couldn't have done it. An engineer couldn't do it, and I don't believe a female can do what an engineer can't do!"
"I suppose," he added, getting up from the table, "Tom Arthurs is half way across now. I wish I could have gone with him. What a holiday!"
"Talking of holidays," Gilbert said, "I'm going to take one, and as you don't seem in a fit state to do any work, Quinny, you'd better take one too, and come with me!"
"Where are you going?" Roger asked. "Anglesey?"
"No. I thought of going there, but I've changed my mind. I shall go to Ireland with Quinny."
"Ireland!" Henry exclaimed, looking across at Gilbert.
"Yes. Dublin. We can go to-night. I've never been there, and I'd like to know what these chaps, Marsh and Galway, are up to. That whatdoyoucallit movement you were telling me about?... you know, the thing that means 'a stitch in time saves nine' or something of the sort!"