t, of course, one expects a man to be perfect.
I didn't think he was going to keep it up."

"He seems to me," said Miss Greene, "a dear, good fellow. You are one of
those people who never know when they are well off."

"I know he is a good fellow," agreed Mrs. Korner, "and I am very fond of
him. It is just because I am fond of him that I hate feeling ashamed of
him. I want him to be a manly man, to do the things that other men do."

"Do all the ordinary sort of men swear and get occasionally drunk?"

"Of course they do," asserted Mrs. Korner, in a tone of authority. "One
does not want a man to be a milksop."

"Have you ever seen a drunken man?" inquired the bosom friend, who was
nibbling sugar.

"Heaps," replied Mrs. Korner, who was sucking marmalade off her fingers.

By which Mrs. Korner meant that some half a dozen times in her life she
had visited the play, choosing by preference the lighter form of British
drama. The first time she witnessed the real thing, which happened just
precisely a month later, long after the conversation here recorded had
been forgotten by the parties most concerned, no one could have been
more utterly astonished than was Mrs. Korner.

How it came about Mr. Korner was never able to fully satisfy himself.
Mr. Korner was not the type that serves the purpose of the temperance
lecturer. His "first glass" he had drunk more years ago than he could
recollect, and since had tasted the varied contents of many others. But
never before had Mr. Korner exceeded, nor been tempted to exceed, the
limits of his favourite virtue, moderation.

"We had one bottle of claret between us," Mr. Korner would often recall
to his mind, "of which he drank the greater part. And then he brought
out the little green flask. He said it was made from pears--that in Peru
they kept it specially for Children's parties. Of course, that may have
been his joke; but in any case I cannot see how just one glass--I wonder
could I have taken more than one glass while he was talking." It was a
point that worried Mr. Korner.

The "he" who had talked, possibly, to such bad effect was a distant
cousin of Mr. Korner's, one Bill Damon, chief mate of the steamship
_La Fortuna_. Until their chance meeting that afternoon in Leadenhall
Street, they had not seen each other since they were boys together. The
_Fortuna_ was leaving St. Katherine's Docks early the next morning bound
for South America, and it might be years before they met ag