"And she didn't know my mother had on the new sea-green bonnet,'" Sir Penthony breaks in, with growing excitement.
"No, she didn't," says Mr. Potts, growing excited too. "So she started for my uncle's,--the cook, I mean,--and as soon as the mirror was put up began bidding away for it like a steam-engine. And presently some one in a pink bonnet began bidding too, and there they were bidding away against each other, the cook not knowing the bonnet, and my mother not being able to see the cook, she was so hemmed in by the crowd, until presently it was knocked down to my mother,--who is a sort of person who would die rather than give in,--and, would you believe it?" winds up Mr. Potts, nearly choking with delight over the misfortunes of his maternal relative, "she had given exactly five pounds more for that mirror than she need have done!"
They all laugh, Sir Penthony and Luttrell with a very suspicious mirth.
"Oh, _she_ didn't mind. When she had relieved herself by blowing up the cook she laughed more than any of us. But it was a long time before the 'governor' could be brought to see the joke. You know he paid for it," says Plantagenet, naively.
"Moral: never buy a new bonnet," says Sir Penthony.
"Or keep an affectionate cook," says Luttrell.
"Or go to an auction," says Philip. "It is a very instructive tale: it is all moral."
"The reason I so much admire it. I know no one such an adept at pointing a moral and adorning a tale as our Plantagenet."
"I think the adornment rested with you and Luttrell," he says, with cutting sarcasm, answering Sir Penthony.
"Potts, you aren't half a one. Tell us another. Your splendid resources can't be yet exhausted," says Philip.
"Yes, do, Potts, and wake me when you come to the point," seconds Sir Penthony, warmly, sinking into an arm-chair and gracefully disposing an antimacassar over his head.
"A capital idea," murmurs Luttrell. "It will give us all a hint when we are expected to laugh."
"Oh, you can chaff as you like," exclaims Mr. Potts, much aggrieved; "but I wonder, if _I_ went to sleep in an arm-chair, which of _you_ would carry on the conversation?"
"Not one of them," declares Cecil, with conviction: "we should all die of mere inanition were it not for you."