"Not at all. I am dazed, dazzled, blinded, but I am not delirious. I can half shut my eyes and see him in his hours of ease sitting in our buttery perusing that sprightly volume with full-page illustrations entitled 'The Stately Homes of Old England.' Sounds pretty good, eh what? Good--hell! He's perfect. He certainly ought to do a lot for us socially over there in Ingleglade. I can half shut 'em again and see the local peasantry turning a lovely pea-green with envy as he issues forth on the front lawn to set up the archery butts so that we may practice up on our butting. That's another place where the buttery will come in handy." "He was willing to come out, then?" "Well, at first he did balk a little on the idea of demeaning himself by accepting a position with the lower or commuting classes. The country, yes; the town, perhaps, but the environs--well, hardly. That was his attitude. But with my lilting love-song I won him, he-siren that I am. I told him Ingleglade was not really suburban but merely outlying, if one gets what one means. That wasn't deception, that was diplomacy. Anyhow, haven't we got some of the outlyingest real-estate dealers in the entire state of New Jersey? Do we not combine all the drawbacks of the city with few or none of the advantages of the country? I often sit and wonder whence comes this magic power of mine for bending strong natures to my will. The crowning stroke was when I told him Boyce-Upchurch was so shortly to honor us. That won him. He admires Boyce-Upchurch tremendously. Not his books--he hasn't read 'em--but it seems he knows Boyce-Upchurch's uncle, who's an archduke or a belted earl or something well up among the face-cards." "You talk too much, Oliver. You think you're funny and you aren't." "Oh, but, madam--" "Shut up a minute! He has references, of course?" "Fair lady, sweet dame, I plight you my solemn word that with the references he's got from noble British families he could be our ambassador to the Court of St. James the day after he took out his naturalization papers. He's temporarily unattached but that's because he hasn't been able to find anybody worthy of him. He's only taking us on trial. Why hark ye, lass, he used to work for the 'Un'rable 'Urrible 'Ubbs. He's got the documents to prove it." "The what?" "I'm merely telling you what he said. It didn't sound like a name to me, either, at first. But now it's beginning to grow on me; I may make a song out of it." "When will he be out?" "This very night. I'm chaperoning him personally. We are to meet at the ferry, and I'm to wear a primrose in my buttonhole in case he's forgotten how I look. I'm reading up now on the history of the Norman Conquest. I want to be prepared to meet him on his own ground should he care for conversation." "Ollie, you always were an idiot." "Dear wench, 'tis a family failing. I have a sister, a flower-like slip of a thing, but, alas, she suffers from pollen in the pod."