e. We dine four.
Lay for five, if your conscience is bad, and I excuse you.'

The man smirked. He ventured to say he had never been so tempted to
supply an inferior article.

My father smiled on him.

'You invite our editorial advocate?' said Captain DeWitt.

'Our adversary,' said my father.

I protested I would not sit at table with him. But he assured me he
believed his advocate and his adversary to be one and the same, and
referred me to the collated sentences.

'The man must earn his bread, Richie, boy! To tell truth, it is the
advocate I wish to rebuke, and to praise the adversary. It will confound
him.'

'It does me,' said DeWitt.

'You perceive, Jorian, a policy in dining these men of the Press now and
occasionally, considering their growing power, do you not?'

'Ay, ay! it's a great gossiping machine, mon Roy. I prefer to let it
spout.'

'I crave your permission to invite him in complimentary terms, cousin
Jorian. He is in the town; remember, it is for the good of the nation
that he and his like should have the opportunity of studying good
society. As to myself personally, I give him carte blanche to fire his
shots at me.'

Near the fashionable hour of the afternoon my father took my arm, Captain
DeWitt a stick, and we walked into the throng and buzz.

'Whenever you are, to quote our advocate, the theme of tea-tables,
Richie,' said my father, 'walk through the crowd: it will wash you. It is
doing us the honour to observe us. We in turn discover an interest in its
general countenance.'

He was received, as we passed, with much staring; here and there a
lifting of hats, and some blunt nodding that incensed me, but he, feeling
me bristle, squeezed my hand and talked of the scene, and ever and anon
gathered a line of heads and shed an indulgent bow along them-; so on to
the Casino. Not once did he offend my taste and make my acute sense of
self-respect shiver by appearing grateful for a recognition, or anxious
to court it, though the curtest salute met his acknowledgement.

The interior of the Casino seemed more hostile. I remarked it to him. 'A
trifle more eye-glassy,' he murmured. He was quite at his easy there.

'We walk up and down, my son,' he said, in answer to a question of mine,
'because there are very few who can; even walking is an art; and if
nobody does, the place is dull.'

'The place is pretty well supplied with newspapers,' said Captain DeWitt.

'And dowagers, friend Jorian. They