"Oh, yes--those." That was all right; Sir Edward had at once promised to release them; it had all been settled in a few minutes.
"Then why were you so long ?" The truth came out: Sir Edward and Page had quickly turned from intercepted cargoes to the more congenial subject of Wordsworth, Tennyson, and other favourite poets, and the rest of the afternoon had been consumed in discussing this really important business.
Perhaps Page was not so great a story-teller as many Americans, but he excelled in a type of yarn that especially delights Englishmen, for it is the kind that is native to the American soil.

He possessed an inexhaustible stock of Negro anecdotes, and he had the gift of bringing them out at precisely the right point.

There was one which the Archbishop of York never tired of repeating.

Soon after America entered the war, the Archbishop asked Page how long his country was "in for." "I can best answer that by telling you a story," said Page.

"There were two Negroes who had just been sentenced to prison terms.