ings are very different."

"I beg your pardon, sir. I hadn't quite grasped," said Ozzie
apologetically, subsiding. "I quite see what you mean. I'm both."

"You are a wonder!" Mr. Prohack murmured.

"Anyway, sir, I'm glad you don't object to our engagement."

"My dear Oswald," said Mr. Prohack in a new tone. "Do you imagine that
after my daughter had expressed her view of you by kissing you I could
fail to share that view. You have a great opinion of Sissie, but I doubt
whether your opinion of her is greater than mine. We will now have a
little whiskey together."

Ozzie's chubby face shone as in his agreeable agitation he searched for
the eye-glass ribbon that was not there.

"Well, sir," said he, beaming. "This interview has not been at all like
what I expected."

"Nor like what I expected either," said Mr. Prohack. "But who can
foresee the future?" And he added to himself: "Could I foresee when I
called this youth a perfect ass that in a very short time I should be
receiving him, not unpleasantly, as a prospective son-in-law? Life is
marvellous."

At the same moment Mrs. Prohack entered the room.

"Oh!" cried she, affecting to be surprised at the presence of Ozzie.

"Wife!" said Mr. Prohack, "Mr. Oswald Morfey has done you the honour to
solicit the hand of your daughter in marriage. You are staggered!

"How ridiculous you are, Arthur!" said Mrs. Prohack, and impulsively
kissed Ozzie.

VI

The wedding festivities really began the next evening with a family
dinner to celebrate Sissie's betrothal. The girl arrived magnificent
from the Grand Babylon, escorted by her lover, and found Mrs. Prohack
equally magnificent--indeed more magnificent by reason of the pearl
necklace. It seemed to Mr. Prohack that Eve had soon become quite used
to that marvellous necklace; he had already had to chide her for leaving
it about. Ozzie also was magnificent; even lacking his eye-glass and
ribbon he was magnificent. Mr. Prohack, esteeming that a quiet domestic
meal at home demanded no ceremony, had put on his old velvet, but Eve
had sharply corrected his sense of values--so shrewishly indeed that
nobody would have taken her for the recent recipient of a marvellous
necklace at his hands--and he had yielded to the extent of a
dinner-jacket. Charlie had not yet come. Since the previous afternoon he
had been out of town on mighty enterprises, but Sissie had seen him
return to the hotel before she left it, and he was momently ex