“Is it possible?” Mr. Mortimer was plainly surprised, not to say hurt.  He knit his brows, and for a moment seemed to be pondering darkly.  “You hear it, Arabella?  But no matter.  As I was saying, sir, I desire the pleasure of introducing you to my wife, Mrs. Mortimer, better known to fame, perhaps, as Miss Arabella St. Maur.  You see her, Mr. Bossom, as my helpmeet under circumstances which (though temporarily unfavourable) call forth the true woman—­naked, in a figurative sense, and unadorned.  But her Ophelia, sir, has been favourably, nay enthusiastically, approved by some of the best critics of our day.”

This again left Sam gravelled.  He had a vague notion that the lady’s Ophelia must be some admired part of her anatomy, but contented himself with touching his brow politely and muttering that he was Mrs. Mortimer’s to command.  The lady, who appeared to be what Sam called to himself a good sort, smiled down on him graciously, and hoped that she and her husband might be favoured with his company at supper.

“It’s very kind of you, ma’am,” responded Sam; “but ’fact is I han’t knocked off work yet.  ‘Must go now and fetch out th’ old hoss for a trifle of haulage; an’ when I get back I must clean meself an’ shift for night-school—­me bein’ due early there to fetch up leeway.  You see,” he explained, “bein’ on the move wi’ the boats most o’ my time, I don’t get the same chances as the other fellows.  So when I hauls ashore, as we call it, I ’ave to make up lost time.”

“A student, I declare!” Mr. Mortimer saluted him.  Rising from the steps of the caravan, he rubbed a hand down his trouser-leg and extended it.  “Permit me to grasp, sir, the horny palm of self-improvement.  A scholar in humble life! and—­as your delicacy in this small matter of the saucepan sufficiently attests—­one of Nature’s gentlemen to boot!  I prophesy that you will go far, Mr. Bossom.  May I inquire what books you thumb?”

“Thumb?” Sam, his hard hand released, stared at it a moment perplexed.  “That ain’t the method, sir; not at our school.  But I’m gettin’ along, and the book is called Lord Macaulay.”

“What?  Macaulay’s Essays?”

“It’s called Lays, sir—­Lord Macaulay’s Lays.  The rest of the class chose it, an’ I didn’ like to cry off, though I ’d not a-flown so high as a lord myself—­not to start with.”

“The Lays of Ancient Rome? My dear Bossom—­my dear Smiles—­you’ll allow me to dub you Smiles? On Self Help, you know.  I like to call my friends by these playful sobriquets, and friends we are going to be, you and I. My dear fellow, I used to know ’em by heart—­”

   ’Lars Porsena of Clusium
    By the nine gods he swore—­’

“—­Is that the ticket, hey?”

Mr. Mortimer clapped him on the shoulder.  “Dang it!” breathed Sam, “how small the world is!”