“I wish you would call gentlemen by their names, Victoria May Alice,” she said irritably. “Do you mean Mr. Eustace Lovegood?” “That’s ’im,” said Victoria May Alice. “Then show him in, you stupid child.” The face of Victoria May Alice cleared. She strode theatrically to the door, flung it open like a footman, and, suppressing a spluttered guffaw, announced mock-heroically: “Mr. Eustace Lovegood!” Lovegood walked in tragically--halted before Victoria May Alice, and put his hand on her head: “Victoria May Alice,” said he, “you will never do for the Embassy. You do not take the world seriously. When you announce genius you must shout it fearlessly, as though you had thrust a benefit upon the world--not as though you were hurriedly hiding away undarned stockings in a coffee canister.” Victoria May Alice muffled a snigger in her hands and skipped from the room. Lovegood turned to his hostess: “Ah, Caroline!” He advanced down the room slowly: “Your devoted slave--Noll’s devoted slave! Ha! Mr. Gomme, your servant! Miss Julia! I am your footstool.” Caroline rose to meet him. She smiled: “You wished to see me, Eustace!” she asked. He nodded: “I came to see if Noll were well,” he said. She made as though she would lead him to the boy’s bedside: “It will do Noll good just to see you,” she said. The big man held her hand: “Ah, my dear Caroline--I come for my own pleasure, not for his. Noll being ill, the town seems unholy quiet. History is an empty tragedy without its historian--an epic less than doggerel without its poet. And the town, being bereft of Noll, has ceased to be moved with incident. The world is become a dead-house. What an eye a boy has for calamities! He scents an event in the air. He arrives before the accident. A boy is always thrilled at the sight of a powder-cask----” “I wish, Eustace, you were not always throwing lighted matches so near the cask.” The great fellow laughed jovially, and kissing her hand, he strode over to the bed where Noll lay, his eyes upon him. The greetings were very cordial. There had always been the alliance of understanding between them. “Noll,” said Lovegood, sitting down on the bed at his feet--“dear boy, I am not well versed in the teething of infants, the lacy mysteries of long-clothes, the cooing garrulities of the cradle, but--I _was_ once a _boy_.... I remember the emotional moments of boyhood.... I have never forgotten my first pork-pie.... I would fain have brought you a rare roast goose, Oliver; but I had to decide on the homely chicken broth.” He turned and called: “What ho, without!” “A-coming!” cried, from without, the shrill voice of Victoria May Alice. The door was flung open, and there entered Victoria, carrying a smoking bowl. “Victoria May Alice,” said Lovegood--“bear the goblet to the king.” Victoria May Alice bore the goblet. She handed the bowl to Noll--spluttered into a guffaw behind a grimy hand--and hurried from the room.