"I think so."

"Insulting enough to be punishable?"

"Rather."

"All right. Come on!"

They fell upon me, and the next few minutes were devoted to what I believe is known in pantomime circles as a Grand Rally, which necessitated my going upstairs afterwards and changing my collar.

Robin was not present at tea, and my household took advantage of his absence to run over his points.

Considering that a woman--especially a young woman--judges a man almost entirely by his manner and appearance, and dislikes him exceedingly if he proceeds to dominate the situation to her exclusion--unless, by the way, he has her permission and authority so to do, in which case he cannot do so too much--the verdict delivered upon my absent secretary was not by any means unfavourable, though, of course, there was much to criticise.

"He'll do," said Dilly; "but you must get his hair cut, Adrian."

"And tell him about not wearing that sort of tie, dear," said Dolly.

"I suppose he can't help his accent," sighs Kitty.

But their criticisms were limited to such trifles as these, and I felt that Robin had done me credit.

Dilly summed up the situation.

"I think on the whole that he is rather a pet," she said.

A more thoroughly unsuitable description could not have been imagined, but Dolly agreed.

"He has nice eyes, too," she added.

"He was perfectly sweet with Phillis after lunch," said Kitty. "Took her on his knee at once, and talked to her just as if we weren't there.

That's a good test of a man, if you like!"

"True for you," I agreed. "I could not do it with other people's children to save my life."

"Oh, you are hopeless," said Dilly. "_Far_ too self-conscious and dignified to climb down to the level of children, isn't he, Dolly?" She crinkled her nose.

Dolly for once was not listening.

"What was that weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It sounded rather cheek, to me."

"Yes, I remember," said Dilly. "Can you do the way he said it?

'Sometimes forrrwarrrd, sometimes coy, she neverrr fails to pullllease!'

Like that! Gracious, how it hurts to talk Scotch!"

"I don't know, dear," said my wife thoughtfully. "It sounded rather quaint. But I daresay all Scotch people are like that," she added charitably.

"Perhaps it was a quotation," I observed mildly.

"Of course, that would be it. What is it out of?"

"A song called 'Phillis is my only Joy,' I think."

"Ah, then you may depend upon it," said Kitty, with the air of one solving a mystery, "that is what the man was doing--_quoting_! Burns, probably, or Scott, perhaps. How clever of him to think of it! And do you know," she continued, "he said such a nice thing to me. While you were bear-fighting with the Twins after lunch, Adrian, I said to him: 'Pity me, Mr Fordyce! My husband never ceases to express to me his regret that he did not marry one of my sisters.' And he answered at once, quite seriously, without stopping to think it out or anything:--'I am sure, Mrs Inglethwaite, that his regret must be shared by countless old admirers of yours!' Wasn't it rather sweet of him?"

Further conversation was prevented by the opening of the drawing-room door, where the butler appeared and announced "Mr Dubberley."

Dubberley is a pillar of our party. I can best describe him by saying that although I hold office under a Conservative Government, ten minutes' conversation with Dubberley leaves me a confirmed Radical, and anything like a protracted interview with him converts me into a Socialist for the next twenty-four hours. A week-end in his society, and I should probably buy a red shirt and send out for bombs. He is a good fellow at bottom, and of immense service to the party; but he is the most blatant ass I have ever met. There are Dubberleys on both sides of the House, however, which is a comfort.

Robin joined us almost directly after Dubberley's entrance, just in time to hear that great man conclude the preamble of his discourse for the afternoon.

There had been a good deal of talk in the papers of late about improving the means of transport throughout the country; and the nationalisation of railways and other semi-socialistic schemes had filled the air.

Dubberley, it appeared, had out of his own gigantic intellect evolved a panacea for congestion of traffic, highness of rates, and railway mortality.

He was well launched in his subject when Robin entered and was introduced.

"As I was saying," he continued, waving an emphatic teaspoon in the direction of the sofa where the ladies sat, smiling but limp,--even the Twins knew it was useless to stem this tide,--"as I was saying, the solution of the problem lies in the revival of our far-reaching but sadly neglected system of _canals_. Yes! If we go to the very root of the matter"--Dubberley is one of those fortunate persons who never has to dig far in his researches--"we find that our whole hope of regeneration lies in the single, simple, homely word--Canals! Revive your canals, send your goods by canal, travel yourself by----"

"How long, Mr Dubberley," interpolated Robin, leaning forward--"how long do you consider one would take to travel, say, a hundred miles by canal?"

"Under our present antiquated system, sir,"--Dubberley rather prides himself on preserving the courtly fashions of address of a bygone age,--"an impossibly long time. The average speed of a canal-boat at the present day under the ministrations of that overburdened and inadequate quadruped, the--er--horse, is three miles per hour. Indeed--one moment!"

Dubberley fished a sheaf of documents out of his pocket--he is the sort of man who habitually secrets statistics and blue-books about his person--and after stertorously perusing them closed his eyes for a moment, as if to work out a sum upon an internal blackboard, and said--

"I see no reason why swift canal-boats should not be constructed to run fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five miles per hour. Indeed, in these days of turbines----"

Robin put down his cup rather emphatically, and said--

"Mphm."

(It is quite impossible to reproduce this extraordinary Caledonian expletive in writing, but that is as near to it as I can get.) Then he continued urbanely--

"Then you would organise a service of fast turbine steamers running all over the canal systems of the country?"

"Exactly. Or let us say--er--launches," said Dubberley. "I must not overstate my case."

"Travelling twenty miles an hour?"

"Say fifteen, sir," said Dubberley magnanimously.

"Mr Dubberley," said Robin, in a voice which made us all jump, "have you a bathroom in your house?"

Even the Twins, who were growing a trifle lethargic under the technicalities of the subject, roused themselves at this fresh turn of the conversation.

"Ah--eh--I beg your pardon?" said Dubberley, a trifle disconcerted.

"A bathroom," repeated Robin--"with a good long bath in it?"

"Er--yes."