to say that--"

The captain paused. He had meant to be funny, but the occasion proved
too much for him.

"Bless you, Robin, my lad," he gasped, suddenly stretching his large
hand across the table and grasping that of his nephew, which was quickly
extended. After shaking it with intense vigour he sat promptly down and
blew his nose.

The thunders of applause which burst from Sam and Mr Wright were joined
in even by the ladies, who, in the excess of their sympathy, made use of
knife-handles and spoons with such manly vigour that several pieces of
crockery went "by the board," as the captain himself remarked, and the
household cat became positively electrified and negatively mad,--
inasmuch as it was repelled by the horrors around, and denied itself the
remaining pleasure of the tea-table by flying wildly from the room.

Of course, Robin attempted a reply, but was equally unsuccessful in
expressing his real sentiments, or the true state of his feelings, but
uncle Rik came to the rescue by turning sharply on Sam and demanding--

"Do you really mean to tell me, sir, that, after all your experience,
you still believe in telegraphs and steamboats?"

Sam promptly asserted that he really did mean that.

"Of course," returned the captain, "you can't help believing in their
existence--for facts are facts--but are you so soft, so unphilosophical,
so idiotical as to believe in their continuance? That's the point,
lad--their continuance. Are you not aware that, in course o' time, rust
they must--"

"An' then they'll bu'st," interpolated Robin.

"Hee! hee! ha!" giggled Letta, who, during all this time, had been
gazing with sparkling eyes and parted lips, from one speaker to another,
utterly forgetful of, and therefore thoroughly enjoying, her own
existence.

"Yes, then they'll bu'st," repeated Rik, with an approving nod at Robin;
"you're right, my boy, and the sooner they do it the better, for I'm
quite sick of their flashings and crashings."

"I rather suspect, Sam," said Mr Wright, "that the gentlemen with whom
you dined the other day would not agree with uncle Rik."

"Whom do you refer to, George?" asked Mrs Wright.

"Has he not yet told you of the grand `inaugural fete,' as they call it,
that was given at the house of Mr Fender, chairman of the Telegraph
Construction and Maintenance Company, to celebrate the opening of direct
submarine telegraphic communication with India?"

"Not a word," replied Mrs Wright, l