s smoking-suit, and dropped into one
of the great arm-chairs that even in summer made a semicircle round the
fendered hearth. Fresh from his good-night parting with Antonia, he sat
perhaps ten minutes before he began to take in all the figures in their
parti-coloured smoking jackets, cross-legged, with glasses in their
hands, and cigars between their teeth.

The man in the next chair roused him by putting down his tumbler with a
tap, and seating himself upon the cushioned fender. Through the mist of
smoke, with shoulders hunched, elbows and knees crooked out, cigar
protruding, beak-ways, below his nose, and the crimson collar of his
smoking jacket buttoned close as plumage on his breast, he looked a
little like a gorgeous bird.

"They do you awfully well," he said.

A voice from the chair on Shelton's right replied,

"They do you better at Verado's."

"The Veau d'Or 's the best place; they give you Turkish baths for
nothing!" drawled a fat man with a tiny mouth.

The suavity of this pronouncement enfolded all as with a blessing. And at
once, as if by magic, in the old, oak-panelled room, the world fell
naturally into its three departments: that where they do you well; that
where they do you better; and that where they give you Turkish baths for
nothing.

"If you want Turkish baths," said a tall youth with clean red face, who
had come into the room, and stood, his mouth a little open, and long feet
jutting with sweet helplessness in front of him, "you should go, you
know, to Buda Pesth; most awfully rippin' there."

Shelton saw an indescribable appreciation rise on every face, as though
they had been offered truffles or something equally delicious.

"Oh no, Poodles," said the man perched on the fender. "A Johnny I know
tells me they 're nothing to Sofia." His face was transfigured by the
subtle gloating of a man enjoying vice by proxy.

"Ah!" drawled the small-mouthed man, "there 's nothing fit to hold a
candle to Baghda-ad."

Once again his utterance enfolded all as with a blessing, and once again
the world fell into its three departments: that where they do you well;
that where they do you better; and--Baghdad.

Shelton thought to himself: "Why don't I know a place that's better than
Baghdad?"

He felt so insignificant. It seemed that he knew none of these
delightful spots; that he was of no use to any of his fellow-men; though
privately he was convinced that all these speakers were as ignorant as