I told you last night on the road that it was a farce we were engaged in." He made the little parlour resound to its foundations with a note of anger positively sepulchral in its depth of tone.

"Farce be hanged! She has bolted with my wife's brother, Captain Anthony." This outburst was followed by complete subsidence.

He faltered miserably as he added from force of habit: "The son of the poet, you know." A silence fell.

Fyne's several expressions were so many examples of varied consistency.

This was the discomfiture of solemnity.