ate. Once or twice in my life I
have been at the mercy of a _table d'hote_ and I was not happy.
Passenger ships, for example. They have all sorts of _purees_ and
_consommes_ and _entrees_ and _fricassees_ and _souffles_, but very
little nourishing food. For some mysterious reason they serve you with a
homeopathic dose of each course and then pitch about half a ton of all
sorts of things down the garbage shoot into the sea, for the gulls and
fishes to gorge themselves on. No doubt, as I say, my notions were wrong
and my brother's were right. No use quarrelling about tastes.

"'Why do you laugh, Charley?' he inquired. 'I was thinking of what you
said about our unfortunate instincts,' I replied. 'No doubt it is true,
but I was wondering how you discovered it.'

"'I should say it was obvious in the past,' he answered gravely. 'As for
the present--you and I you know--one has intuitions, what? And I have
talked with men of old family, and they have told me of cases they know
of.'

"'And you think,' I said, 'that it is a real danger, to marry beneath
you?'

"'Yes,' he said, finishing his soup. '_You_ aren't contemplating it, are
you, Charley?'

"'I don't look at life as you do,' I observed. 'I have become rather
tired of all this talk about classes. I don't feel myself to be a
blue-blooded person at all. I am a seafaring man. Plenty of my shipmates
marry into their own class--the lower-middle class.'

"The silent person in black came in with a bottle in a basket, and
filled our glasses with a white wine. My brother turned his glass round
as he looked at me solemnly. 'I see,' he said, and began to eat his
fish.

"'Of course,' I went on, 'your intuitions, as you call them, are quite
correct as regards me, because when I marry, she will probably be just
what you say. She would be as uncomfortable in a place like this as--as
I am.'

"'Good God!' he muttered, staring at me. 'Is it as bad as that? I should
have thought you would be glad to live decently when you get the
chance.'

"'I have simple tastes,' I answered.

"'So have the beasts of the field,' he retorted, and fixed his eyes
moodily upon his wine. I laughed.

"'Far better,' I said, 'to go each his own road and do the best he can.
I've been through a good deal, Frank, since I saw you, and I dare say
you've been through a lot too, only different. I've worked and been
worked upon, and I've come to certain conclusions. There is no place for
me in all this ordere