“Oh, you poets!” expostulated she.

    “Where the tyrant’s only fee,” murmured Mr. Moggridge.

    “Is the kissing of a hand.”

“What, more verses?  You shall repeat them to me.”

I am afraid that in the obscurity below, Mr. Moggridge inspected the weighing of ship’s stores and sealing of excisable goods in a very perfunctory manner.  There were so many dim corners and passages where Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys needed guidance; and, after all, the minions were sufficient for the work.  They rummaged here and there among casks and chests, weighing, counting, and sealing, whilst the red-faced Uriah stood over them and occasionally looked from the Collector to the lady with a slow grin of growing intelligence.

They were seated together on a cask, and Mr. Moggridge had possessed himself, for the twentieth time, of his companion’s hand.

“You think the verses obscure?” he was whispering.  “Ah!  Geraldine, if I could only speak out from the heart!  As it is, ’Euphelia serves to grace my measure!’”

“Who’s she?” asked Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, whose slight acquaintance with other poets was, perhaps, the reason why she rated her companion’s verse so highly.

“’The merchant, to conceal his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name,’”

Mr. Moggridge began to quote.—­“Why, Geraldine, what is the matter?  Are you faint?”

“No; it is nothing.”

“I thought you seemed pale.  As I was saying—­”

‘The merchant, to conceal his treasure—­’

“Yes, yes, I know,” said she, rising abruptly.  “It is very hot and close down here.”

“Then you were faint?”

“Here’s your chest, marm,” called the voice of Uriah T. Potter.

She turned and walked towards it.  It was a large, square packing-case, and bore the legends—­

“WAPSHOTT AND SONS’,
CHICAGO,
PATENT COMPRESSED TEA,
TEN PRIZE MEDALS”—­

stamped here and there about it.  “I suppose,” she said, turning to Mr. Moggridge, “I can have it weighed here, and pay you the duty, and then Captain Potter can send it straight to ’The Bower’?”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Moggridge; “we won’t be long opening it, and then—­”

“Opening it!”

“Why, yes; as a matter of form, you know.  It won’t take a minute.”

“But how foolish,” said Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, “when you know very well by the invoice that it’s tea!”

“Oh, of course it’s foolish:  only it’s the rule, you understand, before allowing goods to be landed.”

“But I don’t understand.  It is tea, and I am ready to pay the duty.  I never thought you would be so unreasonable.”

“Geraldine!”

At the utterance of Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys’ Christian name the two minions turned aside to conceal their smiles.  The red-faced man’s appreciation even led him to dive behind the packing-case.  The Collector pulled himself up and looked confused.