Mrs. Pope decided she would, and was inspired to ask Mr. Wintersloan if he had been in that part of the country before. Topography ensued. Mr. Wintersloan had a style of his own, and spoke of the Buryhamstreet district as a "pooty little country--pooty little hills, with a swirl in them." This pleased Daffy and Marjorie, and their eyes met for a moment. Then Mr. Magnet, with a ray full on Marjorie, said he had always been fond of Surrey. "I think if ever I made a home in the country I should like it to be here." Mr. Wintersloan said Surrey would tire him, it was too bossy and curly, too flocculent; he would prefer to look on broader, simpler lines, with just a sudden catch in the breath in them--if you understand me? Marjorie did, and said so. "A sob--such as you get at the break of a pinewood on a hill." This baffled Mr. Pope, but Marjorie took it. "Or the short dry cough of a cliff," she said. "Exactly," said Mr. Wintersloan, and having turned a little deliberate close-lipped smile on her for a moment, resumed his wing. "So long as a landscape doesn't _sneeze_" said Mr. Magnet, in that irresistible dry way of his, and Rom and Sydney, at any rate, choked. "Now is the hour when Landscapes yawn," mused Mr. Pope, coming in all right at the end. Then Mrs. Pope asked Mr. Wintersloan, about his route to Buryhamstreet, and then Mr. Pope asked Mr. Magnet whether he was playing at a new work or working at a new play. Mr. Magnet said he was dreaming over a play. He wanted to bring out the more serious side of his humour, go a little deeper into things than he had hitherto done. "Mingling smiles and tears," said Mr. Pope approvingly. Mr. Magnet said very quietly that all true humour did that. Then Mrs. Pope asked what the play was to be about, and Mr. Magnet, who seemed disinclined to give an answer, turned the subject by saying he had to prepare an address on humour for the next dinner of the _Literati_. "It's to be a humourist's dinner, and they've made me the guest of the evening--by way of a joke to begin with," he said with that dry smile again. Mrs. Pope said he shouldn't say things like that. She then said "Syd!" quietly but sharply to Sydney, who was making a disdainful, squinting face at Theodore, and told the parlourmaid to clear the plates for sweets. Mr. Magnet professed great horror of public speaking. He said that whenever he rose to make an after-dinner speech all the ices he had ever eaten seemed to come out of the past, and sit on his backbone. The talk centered for awhile on Mr. Magnet's address, and apropos of Tests of Humour Mr. Pope, who in his way was "no mean raconteur," related the story of the man who took the salad dressing with his hand, and when his host asked why he did that, replied: "Oh! I thought it was spinach!" "Many people," added Mr. Pope, "wouldn't see the point of that. And if they don't see the point they can't--and the more they try the less they do."