"I say, Mr. de Vere, wasn’t that ripping of old Goby to say he’d give me a real pedigree bull-pup? He knows a bull-pup from a window-shutter, as Baker says. You don’t like them? No, but you would if you had one. I feed mine myself, and I wear thick gloves, so’s not to get hydrophobia when he bites. He’s a most interesting dog, and not so good-tempered as most bulldogs. When he sees a cat, oh, my, it’s fun! Look here, when Goby gives me the new pup with the pedigree, you can have mine, if you like, cheap. I know you have a place in the country, and you must want a bulldog. Will you buy him?" "Good heavens, no!" said the poet. "Humph!" cried Bob, who of course had quite forgotten that he was doing all this for Goby, and was just enjoying himself. "Why, what do you do in the country without a dog? Do you ride?" "No," said De Vere. "Well, of all—I say, Mr. de Vere, what do you do? Do you walk about and make poetry, and do you like making it? Old Guth, I mean Mr. Guthrie, he’s my tutor, and he’s over there talking to Mrs. Cadwallader, he reads a lot, and some of yours, too." "Oh, does he!" said De Vere, who began to take some interest. "Does he?" "Oh, a lot of yours, he says; most of it, I think." "And does he like it?" Bob put his head on one side. "Well, he says it’s not bad, some of it." De Vere flinched at this faint praise. "Indeed! And what does he like best?" he asked. "Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning and Shelley, and I say, do you see that bulge in his pocket? That’s Catullus. He reads him all day. But here comes Pen. I say, won’t you have my bull-pup? I’ll let you have him for half a sovereign; I got him for a sovereign, at least, Baker did. _I_ think your poetry’s very fine, sir; Mr. Guthrie lent me some." But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere forgot Bob and the bull-pup, and fell down and worshipped. And the goddess took hold of him, and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a few facts before him and made him gasp. "I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope," he said, when he was once more standing upright before Aphrodite. "I heard—oh, but it was absurd! I can’t believe it." "Then it is probably true," said the goddess, breathlessly, "for I mean to have my own way and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere. I have been reading the accounts of some fashionable weddings lately, and they made me ill. What you have heard is quite true." The poet shook his head. "I have had the honour to beg you to believe a thousand times that I am devoted to you—" "Three times, I think," said Pen, who was good at arithmetic. "Is it only thrice? But do I understand that, if I were to have the inexpressible delight of winning your love, Lady Penelope, that the marriage would be a secret one, that no one would know of it?"