"Ah, how do you do, Mrs. Granger? I hope you'll excuse any odour of Victorias and Patagas I may bring with me. Your brother's Yankee friends smoke like so many peripatetic furnaces." And then he would plant himself against a corner of the mantelpiece, and remain a fixture till Clarissa departed. It was half-an-hour's talk that was almost a tete-a-tete.