yne by seeing him.

But Abel, who saw as much in his way as Mrs. Dagon in hers, although
without the glasses, had carefully kept in the other part of the rooms.
He had planted his batteries before Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut, having
resolved to taste her, as Herbert Octoyne had advised, notwithstanding
that she had no flavor, as Abel himself had averred.

But who eats merely for the flavor of the food?

That lady clicked smoothly as Abel, metaphorically speaking, touched her.
Louis Wilkottle, her cavalier, slipped away from her he could not tell
how: he merely knew that Abel Newt was in attendance, vice Wilkottle,
disappeared. So Wilkottle floated about the rooms upon limp pinions for
sometime, wondering where to settle, and brushed Fanny Newt in flying.

"Oh! Mr. Wilkottle, you are just the man. Mr. Whitloe, Laura Magot, and
I were just talking about Batrachian reptiles. Which are the best toads,
the fattest?"

"Or does it depend upon the dressing?" asked Mr. Whitloe.

"Or the quantity of jewelry in the head?" said Laura Magot.

Mr. Wilkottle smiled, bowed, and passed on.

If they had called him an ass--as they were ladies of the best
position--he would have bowed, smiled, and passed on.

"An amiable fellow," said Fanny, as he disappeared; "but quite a
remarkable fool."

Mr. Zephyr Wetherley, still struggling with the hand problem, approached
Miss Fanny, and remarked that it was very warm.

"You're cool enough in all conscience, Mr. Wetherley," said she.

"My dear Miss Newt, 'pon honor," replied Zephyr, beginning to be very
red, and wiping his moist brow.

"I call any man cool who would have told St. Lawrence upon the gridiron
that he was frying," interrupted Fanny.

"Oh!--ah!--yes!--on the gridiron! Yes, very good! Ha! ha! Quite on the
gridiron--very much so! 'Tis very hot here. Don't you think so? It's
quite confusing, like--sort of bewildering. Don't you think so, Miss
Newt?"

Fanny was leveling her black eyes at him for a reply, but Mr. Wetherley,
trying to regulate his hands, said, hastily,

"Yes, quite on the gridiron--very!" and rapidly moved off it by moving
on.

"Good evenin', Mrs. Newt," said a voice in another part of the room.
"Good-evenin', marm. I sez to ma, Now ma, sez I, you'd better go to Mrs.
Kingfisher's ball. Law, pa, sez she, I reckon 'twill be so werry hot to
Mrs. Kingfisher's that I'd better stay to home, sez she. So she staid.
Well, 'tis dreadful hot, Mrs. Newt. I'm all in a mu