On this occasion, when he had done his story, they all rode up and joined us, and we stood admiring the river, stretching westward in pools of gold between black cliffs, toward the setting sun; then we turned homeward.
That evening Alice said, "Now do tell me, Captain Desborough, was that a true story about Lady Covetown's dog ?" "True!" said he.

"What story worth hearing ever was true?
The old lady lost her dog certainly, and claimed him of a dogstealer in Sackville Street; but all the rest, my dear young lady, is historic romance." "Mr.Hamlyn knows a good story," said Charley Hawker, "about Bougong Jack.

Do tell it to us, Uncle Jeff." "I don't think," I said, "that it has so much foundation in fact as Captain Desborough's.

But there must be some sort of truth in it, for it comes from the old hands, and shows a little more signs of imagination than you would expect from them.

It is a very stupid story too." "Do tell it," they all said.