Edgar Jepson

“ When Pollyooly's side went out to field, he was no more satisfied by the prince's performance. Whenever the ball came to him, in spite of the fact that an encouraging, instructive shriek from Pollyooly reached him first, he either missed it, or fumbled it; and he always shied it in short. The baron's feeling that there was something very wrong with the cosmos grew stronger. He became depressed and yet more depressed by the fact that the prince was playing to an audience; for all the respectful and admiring nurses edged down the beach to behold him play ”

“ He now walked about Pyechurch beach as peacefully as you could wish: he destroyed no castles; he kicked no children.
Even that fierce, stout, moustachioed and military Prussian, the Baron von Habelschwert, seemed to have derived benefit from his violent impingement on the left shoulder of the Honourable John Ruffin. Though his more mature nature should have been fixed, there can be no doubt that he wore a softer air, and no longer trod the English sand with the air of a disdainful but perfumed conqueror. ”

“ Since he had been admitted to their circle on her instance, Pollyooly seemed to feel herself responsible for the prince. She seemed also to feel it more important that he should learn to dig properly than that she should dig herself. For, giving him her spade, she stood over him and urged him to ply it with the exacting persistence of a biblical Egyptian superintending the making of bricks. The baron walked moodily up and down outside the castle wall, considering bitterly the while the defects in the cosmos. ”