xert your
energies and tell us a story."

"Yes, do, Plantagenet," says Lady Stafford, rousing herself resolutely,
and shutting up her fan with a lively snap.

"I will," says Potts, obligingly, without a moment's hesitation.

"Potts is always equal to the occasion," Sir Penthony remarks,
admiringly. "As a penny showman he would have been invaluable and died
worth any money. Such energy, such unflagging zeal is rare. That pretty
gunpowder plot he showed his friends the other night would fetch a
large audience."

"Don't ask me to be the audience a second time," Lady Stafford says,
unkindly. "To be blown to bits once in a lifetime is, I consider, quite
sufficient."

"'Well, if ever I do a ky-ind action again,'" says Mr. Potts,--who is
brimful of odd quotations, chiefly derived from low comedies,--posing
after Toole. "It is the most mistaken thing in the world to do anything
for anybody. You never know where it will end. I once knew a fellow who
saved another fellow from drowning, and hanged if the other fellow
didn't cling on him ever after and make him support him for life."

"I'm sure that's an edifying tale" says Sir Penthony, with a deep show
of interest. "But--stop one moment, Potts. I confess I can't get any
further for a minute or two. _How_ many fellows were there? There
was your fellow, and the other fellow, and the other fellow's fellow;
was that three fellows or four? I can't make it out. I apologize all
round for my stupidity, but would you say it all over again, Potts, and
very slowly this time, please, to see if I can grasp it?"

"Give you my honor I thought it was a conundrum," says Henry Darley.

Plantagenet laughs as heartily as any one, and evidently thinks it a
capital joke.

"You remind me of no one so much as Sothern," goes on Sir Penthony,
warming to his theme. "If you went on the stage you would make your
fortune. But don't dream of acting, you know; go in for being yourself,
pure and simple,--plain, unvarnished Plantagenet Potts,--and I venture
to say you will take London by storm. The British public would go down
before you like corn before the reaper."

"Well, but your story,--your story, Plantagenet," Lady Stafford cries,
impatiently.

"Did you hear the story about my mother and----"

"Potts," interrupts Stafford, mildly but firmly, "if you are going to
tell the story about your mother and the auctioneer I shall leave the
room. It will be the twenty-fifth time I have heard it alread