t the champagne was execrable. A man is a criminal to have such
stuff handed round to his guests. And there isn't the ring of real
gold about the house."

"I hate the ring of gold, as you call it," said the artist.

"So do I,--I hate it like poison; but if it is there, I like it to be
true. There is a sort of persons going now,--and one meets them out
here and there every day of one's life,--who are downright Brummagem
to the ear and to the touch and to the sight, and we recognize them
as such at the very first moment. My honoured lord and master, Sir
Raffle, is one such. There is no mistaking him. Clap him down upon
the counter, and he rings dull and untrue at once. Pardon me, my dear
Conway, if I say the same of your excellent friend Mr. Dobbs
Broughton."

"I think you go a little too far, but I don't deny it. What you mean
is, that he's not a gentleman."

"I mean a great deal more than that. Bless you, when you come to talk
of a gentleman, who is to define the word? How do I know whether or
no I'm a gentleman myself? When I used to be in Burton Crescent, I
was hardly a gentlemen then,--sitting at the same table with Mrs
Roper and the Lupexes;--do you remember them, and the lovely Amelia?"

"I suppose you were a gentleman, then, as well as now?"

"You, if you had been painting duchesses then, with a studio in
Kensington Gardens, would not have said so, if you had happened to
come across me. I can't define a gentleman, even in my own mind;--but
I can define the sort of man with whom I think I can live
pleasantly."

"And poor Dobbs doesn't come within the line?"

"N--o, not quite; a very nice fellow, I'm quite sure, and I'm very
much obliged to you for taking me there."

"I never will take you to any house again. And what did you think of
his wife?"

"That's a horse of another colour altogether. A pretty woman with
such a figure as hers has got a right to be anything she pleases. I
see you are a great favourite."

"No, I'm not;--not especially. I do like her. She wants to make up a
match between me and that Miss Van Siever. Miss Van is to have gold
by the ingot, and jewels by the bushel, and a hatful of back shares,
and a whole mine in Cornwall, for her fortune."

"And is very handsome into the bargain."

"Yes; she's handsome."

"So is her mother," said Johnny. "If you take the daughter, I'll
take the mother, and see if I can't do you out of a mine or two.
Good-night, old fellow. I'm only joking about