you in time to realize that the rapier of irony is more
effective an instrument than the bludgeon of insolence.'

O'Brien reddened with anger, but could not at once find a retort, and
Haddo passed on to that faded, harmless youth who sat next to Margaret.

'Do my eyes deceive me, or is this the Jagson whose name in its inanity
is so appropriate to the bearer? I am eager to know if you still devote
upon the ungrateful arts talents which were more profitably employed upon
haberdashery.'

The unlucky creature, thus brutally attacked, blushed feebly without
answering, and Haddo went on to the Frenchman, Meyer as more worthy of
his mocking.

'I'm afraid my entrance interrupted you in a discourse. Was it the
celebrated harangue on the greatness of Michelangelo, or was it the
searching analysis of the art of Wagner?'

'We were just going,' said Meyer, getting up with a frown.

'I am desolated to lose the pearls of wisdom that habitually fall from
your cultivated lips,' returned Haddo, as he politely withdrew Madame
Meyer's chair.

He sat down with a smile.

'I saw the place was crowded, and with Napoleonic instinct decided
that I could only make room by insulting somebody. It is cause for
congratulation that my gibes, which Raggles, a foolish youth, mistakes
for wit, have caused the disappearance of a person who lives in open sin;
thereby vacating two seats, and allowing me to eat a humble meal with
ample room for my elbows.'

Marie brought him the bill of fare, and he looked at it gravely.

'I will have a vanilla ice, O well-beloved, and a wing of a tender
chicken, a fried sole, and some excellent pea-soup.'

'_Bien, un potage, une sole,_ one chicken, and an ice.'

'But why should you serve them in that order rather than in the order I
gave you?'

Marie and the two Frenchwomen who were still in the room broke into
exclamations at this extravagance, but Oliver Haddo waved his fat hand.

'I shall start with the ice, O Marie, to cool the passion with which
your eyes inflame me, and then without hesitation I will devour the wing
of a chicken in order to sustain myself against your smile. I shall then
proceed to a fresh sole, and with the pea-soup I will finish a not
unsustaining meal.'

Having succeeded in capturing the attention of everyone in the room,
Oliver Haddo proceeded to eat these dishes in the order he had named.
Margaret and Burdon watched him with scornful eyes, but Susie, who was
not revolted by th