“The Maritana, or the Mariana, or Mary Ann, or something of the—­Hullo! what’s wrong?”

But the Honourable Frederic had caught up his hat and fled.  Half an hour afterwards, when he returned, his usual calm self, the little Doctor took occasion to remark, “Upon my word, you might be a detective, you keep such a look-out on the harbour”—­a remark which caused Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys to laugh so consumedly that the Doctor, without exactly seeing the point, began to think he had perpetrated quite a considerable joke.

But let no one imagine that the disruption of Trojan morals avoided heart-burning or escaped criticism.  For the line which Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys declared must be drawn somewhere was found not only to bisect the domestic hearth, but to lead to a surprising number of social problems.  It fell across the parallels of our small society, and demonstrated that Mrs. A and Mrs. B could never meet; that one room could not contain the two unequal families X and Y; and that while one rested on the basis of trade, and the other on professional skill, it was unreasonable to expect the apex Mrs. Y to coincide with the apex Mrs. X. Finally the New Geometry culminated in a triumphant process, which proved that while Mrs. Simpson was allowed to imbibe tea and scandal in the company of the great, her husband must sip his gin and water in solitude at home.

We had always been select in Troy; but then, In the old days, all Troy had been included in the term.  When Mr. Simpson had spoken of the “Jack of Oaks” (meaning the Knave of Clubs), or had said “fainaiguing” (where others said “revoking"), we had pretended not to notice it, until at length we actually did not.  So that a human as well as a philological interest attaches to the date when fashion narrowed the meaning of Cumeelfo to exclude the Jack of Oaks, and sent Mr. Simpson home to his gin and water.

The change was discussed with some asperity in the bar-parlour of the “Man-o’-War.”

“The hupper classes in Troy es bloomin’ fine nowadays,” remarked Rechab Geddye (locally known as Rekkub) over his beer on the night when the resignations of Mr. Buzza Junior and Mr. Moggridge had been received by the “Jolly Trojans.”

“Ef they gets the leastest bit finer, us shan’t be able to see mun,” answered Bill Odgers, who was reckoned a wit.  “I have heerd tell as Trojans was cousins an’ hail-fellow-well-met all the world over; but the hayleet o’ this place es a-gettin’ a bit above itsel’.”

“That’s a true word, Bill,” interposed Mrs. Dymond from the bar; “an’ to say ‘Gie us this day our daily bread,’ an’ then turn up a nose at good saffron cake es flyin’ i’ the face o’ Pruvvidence, an’ no less.”

“I niver knawed good to come o’ titled gentry yet,” said Bill.

“You doan’t say that?” exclaimed Rekkub, who was an admirer of Bill’s Radical views.