London did call
him Siph, and to him it was quite natural that they should do so.
He was an Irishman, living on the best of everything in the world,
with apparently no fortune of his own, and certainly never earning
anything. Everybody liked him, and it was admitted on all sides that
there was no safer friend in the world, either for young ladies or
young men, than Mr. Onesiphorus Dunn. He did not borrow money, and he
did not encroach. He did like being asked out to dinner, and he did
think that they to whom he gave the light of his countenance in town
owed him the return of a week's run in the country. He neither shot,
nor hunted nor fished, nor read, and yet he was never in the way in
any house. He did play billiards, and whist, and croquet--very badly.
He was a good judge of wine, and would occasionally condescend to
look after the bottling of it on behalf of some very intimate friend.
He was a great friend of Mrs. Thorne's, with whom he always spent ten
days in the autumn at Chaldicotes.

Bernard and Emily were not insatiable lovers, but nevertheless,
Mrs. Thorne had thought it proper to provide a fourth in the
riding-parties, and had put Mr. Dunn upon this duty. "Don't bother
yourself about it, Siph," she had said; "only if those lovers should
go off philandering out of sight, our little country lassie might
find herself to be nowhere in the Park." Siph had promised to make
himself useful, and had done so. There had generally been so large a
number in their party that the work imposed on Mr. Dunn had been very
light. Lily had never found out that he had been especially consigned
to her as her own cavalier, but had seen quite enough of him to be
aware that he was a pleasant companion. To her, thinking, as she ever
was thinking, about Johnny Eames, Siph was much more agreeable than
might have been a younger man who would have endeavoured to make her
think about himself.

Thus when she found herself riding alone in Rotten Row with Siph
Dunn, she was neither disconcerted nor displeased. He had been
talking to her about Lord De Guest, whom he had known,--for Siph knew
everybody,--and Lily had begun to wonder whether he knew John Eames.
She would have liked to hear the opinion of such a man about John
Eames. She was making up her mind that she would say something about
the Crawley matter,--not intending of course to mention John Eames's
name,--when suddenly her tongue was paralysed and she could not
speak. At that mom