Polly was skipping round the room, I guess, gay as a lark.  Auchmuty came to her “in pity for poor Ingham,” who was so bored by the stupid pundit,—­and Auchmuty could not understand why I stood it so long.  But when Dennis took Mrs. Jeffries down, Polly could not resist standing near them.  He was a little flustered, till the sight of the eatables and drinkables gave him the same Mercian courage which it gave Diggory.  A little excited then, he attempted one or two of his speeches to the Judge’s lady.  But little he knew how hard it was to get in even a promptu there edgewise.  “Very well, I thank you,” said he, after the eating elements were adjusted; “and you?” And then did not he have to hear about the mumps, and the measles, and arnica, and belladonna, and chamomile-flower, and dodecatheon, till she changed oysters for salad; and then about the old practice and the new, and what her sister said, and what her sister’s friend said, and what the physician to her sister’s friend said, and then what was said by the brother of the sister of the physician of the friend of her sister, exactly as if it had been in Ollendorff?  There was a moment’s pause, as she declined Champagne.  “I am very glad you liked it,” said Dennis again, which he never should have said but to one who complimented a sermon.  “Oh! you are so sharp, Mr. Ingham!  No!  I never drink any wine at all,—­except sometimes in summer a little currant shrub,—­from our own currants, you know.  My own mother,—­that is, I call her my own mother, because, you know, I do not remember,” etc., etc., etc.; till they came to the candied orange at the end of the feast, when Dennis, rather confused, thought he must say something, and tried No. 4,—­“I agree, in general, with my friend the other side of the room,”—­which he never should have said but at a public meeting.  But Mrs. Jeffries, who never listens expecting to understand, caught him up instantly with “Well, I’m sure my husband returns the compliment; he always agrees with you,—­though we do worship with the Methodists; but you know, Mr. Ingham,” etc., etc., etc., till the move up-stairs; and as Dennis led her through the hall, he was scarcely understood by any but Polly, as he said, “There has been so much said, and, on the whole, so well said, that I will not occupy the time.”

His great resource the rest of the evening was standing in the library, carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way.  Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentences in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals.  This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech, but better where other talking is going on.  Thus:  “We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham.”  Ingham replies, “I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were mmmmm.”  By gradually dropping