"Some ties a bit o' string round the finger to help the mem'ry.

I does et this way." "Well, well, I should have thought it more apt to assist the memory of others.

Still, of course, you know best." And Mr.Fogo resumed his work, and thought no more about it; but Caleb alternated between moods of pensiveness and fussy energy for some days after.
In Troy, summer was leading on a train of events not to be classed among periodic phenomena.

It stands on record, for instance-- That Loo began to be played at the Club, and the Admiral's weekly accounts to grow less satisfactory than in the days when he and Mrs.
Buzza were steadfast opponents at Whist.
That Mrs.Simpson discovered her great uncle to have been a baronet on this earth.
That Mrs.Payne had prefixed "Ellicome" to her surname, and spoke of "_the_ Ellicome-Paynes, you know." That Mr.Moggridge had been heard to speak of Sam Buzza as a "low fellow." That Sam had retorted by terming the poet a "conceited ass." And-- That Admiral Buzza intended a Picnic.
To measure the importance of this last item, you must know that a Trojan picnic is no ordinary function.

To begin with, it is essentially patriotic--devoted, in fact, to the cult of the Troy river, in honour of which it forms a kind of solemn procession.
Undeviating tradition has fixed its goal at a sacred rock, haunted of heron and kingfisher, and wrapped around with woodland, beside a creek so tortuous as to simulate a series of enchanted lakes.
Here the self-respecting Trojan, as his boat cleaves the solitude, will ask his fellows earnestly and at regular intervals whether they ever beheld anything more lovely; and they, in duty bound and absolute truthfulness, will answer that they never did.
It follows that a Trojan picnic depends for its success to quite a peculiar degree upon the weather.