nt to. Come, Mr. Holway."

She moved away, the flattered "Monty" in her wake. Mr. Hungerford gazed
after them. He appeared not altogether pleased.

"Very sociable, chatty chap, that friend of yours, I should judge,"
observed Captain Dan drily.

"Um-hm!" grunted Cousin Percy. "Been chatting to you, has he?"

"No-o, not much this time. But you remember I've had the pleasure
before."

Mr. Hungerford doubtless remembered; he looked as if he did. Then
he, too, strolled away. The captain, left alone, indulged in a quiet
chuckle.

Miss Canby's rendition on the piano, of what she was pleased to call
"A sweet little thing of Tschaikovsky's--one of my favorites," was
enthusiastically applauded, and she obliged with another, and still
another. Then Mr. Abercrombie was prevailed upon to read one of his own
outpourings of genius, a poem called "The Tigress," in which someone,
presumably the author, described the torments involved in his adoration
of a feminine person with "jetty brows and lambent eyes," whose kiss was
like "a viper's sting" and who had, so to speak, raised the very dickens
with his feelings. He read it with passionate fervor, and Captain Dan,
listening, decided that the Tigress must be a most unpleasant person.

However, judging by the acclaim of the rest of the audience, she was
a huge success, and the poet was coaxed into reading again, this time
something which he had labeled "Soul Beams," and in which "love" rhymed
with "dove" and "heart" with "dart" and "bliss" with "kiss" in truly
orthodox fashion. Mr. Abercrombie's poetic gems were not appreciated by
the mercenary and groveling minions who edited magazines, but here,
amid his fellow Bohemians, they were more than appreciated, a fact which
their creator announced gratified him more than he could express.
And yet, he seemed to have little difficulty and less hesitation in
expressing most things.

Daniel was not enthusiastic over the poems. He could not understand a
great deal of them, but he understood quite enough. When B. Phelps Black
winked at him from his seat at the other side of the room, he did not
return the wink, although he knew perfectly well what it meant.

The poems were bad enough, according to his figuring, but when Miss
Beatrice Dusante tripped into the circle to slip and twist and slide
and gyrate in "one of her delightful Grecian dances," he found himself
looking about for a convenient exit. Discovering none he remained where
he was