At that moment came the other Floud, he of the eyebrows, and a cousin
cub called Elmer, who, I understood, studied art. I became aware that
they were both suddenly engaged and silenced by the sight of Cousin
Egbert. I caught their amazed stares, and then terrifically they broke
into gales of laughter. The cub threw himself on a couch, waving his
feet in the air, and holding his middle as if he'd suffered a sudden
acute dyspepsia, while the elder threw his head back and shrieked
hysterically. Cousin Egbert merely glared at them and, endeavouring
to stroke his moustache, succeeded in unwaxing one side of it so that
it once more hung limply down his chin, whereat they renewed their
boorishness. The elder Floud was now quite dangerously purple, and the
cub on the couch was shrieking: "No matter how dark the clouds, remember
she is still your stepmother," or words to some such silly effect as
that. How it might have ended I hardly dare conjecture--perhaps Cousin
Egbert would presently have roughed them--but a knock sounded, and it
became my duty to open our door upon other guests, women mostly;
Americans in Paris; that sort of thing.

I served the tea amid their babble. The Honourable George was shown up
a bit later, having done to himself quite all I thought he might in
the matter of dress. In spite of serious discrepancies in his attire,
however, I saw that Mrs. Effie meant to lionize him tremendously. With
vast ceremony he was presented to her guests--the Honourable George
Augustus Vane-Basingwell, brother of his lordship the Earl of
Brinstead. The women fluttered about him rather, though he behaved
moodily, and at the first opportunity fell to the tea and cakes quite
wholeheartedly.

In spite of my aversion to the American wilderness, I felt a bit of
professional pride in reflecting that my first day in this new service