What a pretty reminiscence of the age of artificiality!" said Ella;
"and what an apt commentary upon the subject we were talking about,
Phyllis! We were discussing the merits of directness in speech and
straightness in every way. We were ridiculing the timid maid--all
sandals and simper--of forty years ago. Why should men and women have
ever taken the trouble to be affected? Let us go in to lunch and eat
with the appetites of men and women of the nineties, not with the
nibblings of society of the fifties. Come along, Phyllis. Mr. Courtland
will tell us all about his dreadful goings on, his slave-dealings, his
dynamitings. Have you seen that article in the--what's the name of the
paper, Phyllis?"

"The _Spiritual Aneroid_," said Phyllis.

"I haven't been so fortunate," said he.

"Then we shall take the paper into the dining room with us, and place it
before you. If you were guilty of the doings that the article details,
you would do well to--to--well, to adopt the picturesque costume
incidental to ruffianism--the linen jacket of the slave-trader, the
mangy fur collar of the dynamity man of war. Have you ever trafficked in
human beings, Mr. Courtland?"

"Well, yes," said he. "I have done a little in that way, I admit."

"And dynamite--have you ever massacred people with dynamite?" Ella
continued.

"Well, when my dynamite exploded, the people who were in the immediate
neighborhood were never just the same afterward," said he.

"Finally, did you allow yourself to be worshiped as God?" she asked.

"Yes, I got them to do that," he replied. "I have experienced all human
sensations, including those of a god in working order."

"Then I hope you will make a good lunch. We begin with white-bait."

"I am quite satisfied to begin with white-bait," said he.

CHAPTER XIII.

EVEN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DOESN'T MATTER MUCH.

"I did not intend to stay for lunch," said Phyllis, "but your
overpowering will swept me along with it, Ella. But I hope you will
let me say that I don't think you should jest about what is--what some
people at any rate think very serious."

"Phyllis is of Philistia," said Ella, "and Philistia was always given
to ordeal by champions. She thinks the attack made upon you by two
missionaries in their newspaper organ quite disgraceful. It doesn't seem
so disgraceful after all."

"I haven't seen the attack," said he. "But I feel it to be very good of
Miss Ayrton to think it disgraceful."

"Of course