But Mr. Selfridge Merry had caught the phrase “round the world,” and having once circled the globe in his steam-yacht, he seized the opportunity to send down the table several striking items concerning the shallowness of the Mediterranean ports. Though, after all, he added, it didn’t matter; for when you’d seen Athens and Smyrna and Constantinople, what else was there? And Mrs. Merry said she could never be too grateful to Dr. Bencomb for having made them promise not to go to Naples on account of the fever.

“But you must have three weeks to do India properly,” her husband conceded, anxious to have it understood that he was no frivolous globe-trotter.