“Ah, Mr. Buzza, I am interested in you already—­my husband has been telling me how he met you.”

“Proud to hear it,” muttered Sam.

“Oh, yes.  I hope we shall be great friends.  It is so kind of you all to call.”

Sam asked her not to mention it; and looked at his father, whose face was by this time purple with conversation.

“I say, ain’t the old boy enjoying himself, though!” he remarked in a sudden burst of confidence.  “What do you think of him?”

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys smiled sweetly, and replied that the Admiral was “so thorough.”

“Thorough old duffer, you mean.  Look at him.  What with his gold spangles and his talking to Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, he’s as proud as a cock on a wall.”

His hostess laughed.  “You are very frank,” she said.

“That’s me all over,” replied Sam, evidently pleased.  “You see, I ain’t polite—­not a ladies’ man in any way.”

“There I am sure you do yourself injustice.”

“No, ’pon my word!  I never had any practice.”

“What, not among all the charming girls I saw in church yesterday?  Oh, Mr. Buzza, you mustn’t tell me that.”  A look from the dark eyes accompanied this sentence.

Now, very few young men of Sam’s stamp greatly mind being considered gay Lotharios.  So that when he repeated that “’Pon his word he wasn’t,” he also turned his neck about in his collar for a second or so, smiled meaningly, and altogether looked rather pleased than not.

“I’m afraid you are a very sad character, Mr. Buzza.”

“No, really now.”

“And are deceiving me horribly.”

“No, really; wouldn’t think of it.”

“Sam!” broke in the Admiral’s voice in tones of thunder.

“Yes, sir.”

“How does Mr. Moggridge describe the ‘Man-o’-War’ Hotel?”

“Says the beer’s falling off, sir.  It did, once upon a time, taste of the barrel, but now he’ll be hanged if it tastes of anything at all.  It ought—­”

“Don’t be a fool, sir!  I mean in that poem of his from ’Ivy Leaves:  or, Tendrils from Troy.’”

“Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure.  Let me see—­”

Before he could recall it, Sophia finished the quotation, timidly.  “I think, papa, I can remember it:—­”

                      ’And thou,
     Quaint hostel! ’neath whose mould’ring gable ends
     In amber draught I slake my noonday thirst . . .’

“Something like that, I think, papa.”

“Ah, to be sure:  ‘mould’ring gable ends,’ a most accurate description.  It used to belong to—­” and the Admiral plunged again into a flood of conversation.

“You must bring this Mr. Moggridge and introduce him,” said Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys to Sam.  “He is a Collector of Customs, is he not?  Do you think he would recite any of his verses to me?”

“By the hour.  But I shouldn’t advise you to ask him.  It’s all about my sister.”