‘Dainty little girlie Mavis, She is such a rara avis, All the money I can save is All to be for Mavis mine.’

It goes to a sickening namby-pamby waltz tune, and for months nothing else was sung and hummed in Blackpool and other popular centres.”

This time Clovis’s self-control broke down badly.

“Please excuse me,” he gurgled, “but I can’t help it when I remember the awful solemnity of that article of yours that you so kindly read us last night, on the Coptic Church in its relation to early Christian worship.”

Septimus groaned.