"It is most happily explained in the play of the _Man of the World_," said Miss Acton. "I was never more pleased than by Sir Pertinax Macsycophant's reply to his nephew's question how he had made his way in the world. Sir Pertinax replies, 'By booing, sir.' A great deal of money and fine social positions have been obtained by booing." "Hence the value of being able to make a leg in your opinion, madam," said General Groves. "If trousers come in legs must go out," said Lucy. "What is the good of being able to make a leg with elegance if fashion compels you to conceal the eloquent member?" "Well said, Miss, well said!" cried Miss Proudfoot, who was a very good hand at whist and very quarrelsome over the game. "I don't believe myself," said Miss Acton, "that trousers ever will come in. Men whose calves are of a good shape and who have long been in the habit of admiring and cherishing them, will be very reluctant to conceal them in those ridiculous unmanly garments called trousers." "As the majority of men strut this petty earth on drum-sticks," said General Groves. "I expect that in a few years hence the universal male wear will be trousers." He looked at his own legs. Time had somewhat shrunk them. "Mr Lawrence has wonderfully improved of late," said Miss Proudfoot, with a glance at Lucy. "I should say that when in the Navy he was one of the handsomest men in that glorious Service." "All praise of him is gratifying to me for his father's sake," said Captain Acton, whilst Lucy sat in silence with the shadow of a smile lurking about her mouth, but invisible in her soft, dreamy half-veiled eyes. "Would not you like to take a trip to the West Indies in your father's ship, Miss?" said the Reverend James Prettyman, who had been headmaster at a fashionable school for young gentlemen for many years past in a city about twenty miles distant from Old Harbour Town. "Only the other day," replied Lucy, "I told Mr Eagle, the mate of the vessel, that I could not imagine a pleasanter trip than a voyage to the West Indies in the _Minorca_, but I stipulated that the sea should be always smooth." "There it is!" said Miss Acton. "Give me a sea as smooth as our lawn, and I will accompany you, my dear." Here Mr Pierpoint, who held some influential position in connection with Old Harbour and was one of Captain Acton's frequent guests at his whist tables, exclaimed: "The master of the _Aurora_ told me, a day or two ago, that Mr Lawrence was attempting a wonderful innovation in Merchant ships by the introduction of a sick-bay, after the custom of men-o'-war."