“Yes, yes, yes—I remember it very well—very queer indeed! Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence, indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an extraordinary concurrence of events. Doctor Dub—”
Interrupting. “To be sure, papa, it is something strange; but then Captain Pratt and Captain Smitherton didn’t go altogether the same route, and that makes a difference, you know.”
“I don’t know any such thing, you hussy! How should I? I think it only makes the matter more remarkable, Doctor Dubble L. Dee—”
“Why, papa, Captain Pratt went round Cape Horn, and Captain Smitherton doubled the Cape of Good Hope.”
“Precisely!—the one went east and the other went west, you jade, and they both have gone quite round the world. By the by, Doctor Dubble L. Dee—”
Hurriedly. “Captain Pratt, you must come and spend the evening with us tomorrow—you and Smitherton—you can tell us all about your voyage, and we’ll have a game of whist and—”
“Wist, my dear fellow—you forget. Tomorrow will be Sunday. Some other evening—”
“Oh, no, fie!—Robert’s not quite so bad as that. Today’s Sunday.”
“I beg both your pardons—but I can’t be so much mistaken. I know tomorrow’s Sunday, because—”
Much surprised. “What are you all thinking about? Wasn’t yesterday , Sunday, I should like to know?”
“Yesterday indeed! you are out!”