‘So this is Bursley!’ I murmured, taking my mouth out of a towel.

‘Bosley, we call it,’ he said.  ’Do you know the limerick—­“There was a young woman of Bosley"?’

‘No.’

He intoned the local limerick.  It was excellently good; not meet for a mixed company, but a genuine delight to the true amateur.  One good limerick deserves another.  It happened that I knew a number of the unprinted Rossetti limericks, precious things, not at all easy to get at.  I detailed them to Mr Brindley, and I do not exaggerate when I say that I impressed him.  I recovered all the ground I had lost upon cigarettes and newspapers.  He appreciated those limericks with a juster taste than I should have expected.  So, afterwards, did his friends.  My belief is that I am to this day known and revered in Bursley, not as Loring the porcelain expert from the British Museum, but as the man who first, as it were, brought the good news of the Rossetti limericks from Ghent to Aix.

‘Now, Bob,’ an amicable voice shrieked femininely up from the ground-floor, ’am I to send the soup to the bathroom or are you coming down?’

A limerick will make a man forget even his dinner.

Mr Brindley performed once more with his eyes that something that was, not a wink, but a wink unutterably refined and spiritualized.  This time I comprehended its import.  Its import was to the effect that women are women.

We descended, Mr Brindley still in his knickerbockers.

‘This way,’ he said, drawing aside a portiere.  Mrs Brindley, as we entered the room, was trotting a male infant round and round a table charged with everything digestible and indigestible.  She handed the child, who was in its nightdress, to a maid.

‘Say good night to father.’

‘Good ni’, faver,’ the interesting creature piped.

‘By-bye, sonny,’ said the father, stooping to tickle.  ‘I suppose,’ he added, when maid and infant had gone, ’if one’s going to have mumps, they may as well all have it together.’

‘Oh, of course,’ the mother agreed cheerfully.  ’I shall stick them all into a room.’

‘How many children have you?’ I inquired with polite curiosity.

‘Three,’ she said; ‘that’s the eldest that you’ve seen.’

What chiefly struck me about Mrs Brindley was her serene air of capableness, of having a self-confidence which experience had richly justified.  I could see that she must be an extremely sensible mother.  And yet she had quite another aspect too—­how shall I explain it?—­as though she had only had children in her spare time.