"I hear you
addressed as Mr. Potts,--as Potts even--but never by anything that
might be mistaken for a first name."

"Yes," replies Mr. Potts, proudly. "I was christened Plantagenet. Good
sound, hasn't it? Something to do with the Dark Ages and Pinnock, only
I never remember clearly what. Our fellows have rather a low way of
abbreviating it and bringing it down to 'Planty.' And--would you
believe it?--on one or two occasions they have so far forgotten
themselves as to call me 'the regular Plant.'"

"What a shame!" says Miss Massereene, with deep sympathy.

"Let 'em," says Mr. Potts, heroic, if vulgar, shaking his crimson head.
"It's fun to them, and it's by no means 'death' to me. It does no harm.
But it's a nuisance to have one's mother put to the trouble of
concocting a fine name, if one doesn't get the benefit of it."

"I agree with you. Were I a man, and rejoiced in such a name as
Plantagenet, I would insist upon having every syllable of it distinctly
sounded, or I'd know the reason why. 'All or nothing' should be my
motto."

"I never think of it, I don't see my wife's cards," says Mr. Potts, who
has had a good deal of champagne, and is rather moist about the eyes.
"'Mrs. Plantagenet Potts' would look well, wouldn't it?"

"Very aristocratic," says false Molly, with an admiring nod. "I almost
think,--I am not quite sure,--but I almost think I would marry a man to
bear a name like that."

"Would you?" cries Mr. Potts, his tongue growing freer, while
enthusiasm sparkles in every feature. "If I only thought that, Miss
Molly----"

"How pretty Mrs. Darley is looking to-night!" interrupts Molly,
adroitly; "what a clear complexion she has!--just like a child's."

"Not a bit of it," says Mr. Potts. "Children don't require 'cream of
roses' and 'Hebe bloom' and--and all that sort of thing, you know--to
get 'emselves up."

"Ah! my principal pity for her is that she doesn't seem to have
anything to say."

"Englishwomen never have, as a rule; they are dull to the last degree.
Now, you are a singular exception."

"English! I am not English," says Molly, with exaggerated disgust. "Do
not offend me. I am Irish--altogether, thoroughly Irish,--heart and
mind a Paddy."

"No! are you, by Jove?" says Mr. Potts. "So am I--at least, partly so.
My mother is Irish."

So she had been English, Welsh, and Scotch on various occasions; there
is scarcely anything Mrs. Potts had _not_ been. There was even one
memorable occasion