"
"Little boy," he said sternly, "your conduct is unworthy of a--I
mean, what are you doing here?"
"You've a-been an' squashed a cake," said the boy.
Mr. Fogo gave him a shilling, and hurried away down the road; but
stopped once or twice on his homeward way to repeat to himself--
"So _that_--is the man--she married."
It took Admiral Buzza several days to recover his composure; but when
he did, the project of the new Club grew with the conjugal
disintegration of Troy, and at a rate of progress scarcely inferior.
Within a week or two a house was hired in Nelson Row, a brass-plate
bearing the words "Trojan Club" affixed to the door, and Admiral
Buzza installed in the Presidential Chair. The Presidential Chair
occupied the right-hand side of the reading-room window, which
overlooked the harbour; and the Presidential duties consisted mainly
in conning the morning papers and discussing their contents with Mr.
Goodwyn-Sandys, who usually sat, with a glass of whiskey and the Club
telescope, on the left-hand side of the window. Indeed, it would be
hard to say to which of the two, the whiskey or the telescope, the
Honourable Frederic more sedulously devoted himself: it is certain,
at least, that under the Admiral's instruction he soon developed a
most amazing familiarity with nautical terms, was a mine of
information (almost as soon as the Club invested in a Yacht Register)
on the subject of Lord Sinkport's yacht, the auxiliary screw _Niobe_,
and swept the horizon with a persistence that made his fellow-members
stare.
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