ounger generation without paying the
younger generation back in its own coin.

"In _my_ time, my dear," he said to his niece, "people were expected to
bring some agreeable quality with them to social meetings of this sort.
In your time you have dispensed with all that. Here," remarked the old
gentleman, taking up a croquet mallet from the table near him, "is
one of the qualifications for success in modern society. And here," he
added, taking up a ball, "is another. Very good. Live and learn. I'll
play! I'll play!"

Lady Lundie (born impervious to all sense of irony) smiled graciously.

"I knew Sir Patrick would play," she said, "to please me."

Sir Patrick bowed with satirical politeness.

"Lady Lundie," he answered, "you read me like a book." To the
astonishment of all persons present under forty he emphasized those
words by laying his hand on his heart, and quoting poetry. "I may say
with Dryden," added the gallant old gentleman:

"'Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.'"

Lady Lundie looked unaffectedly shocked. Mr. Delamayn went a step
farther. He interfered on the spot--with the air of a man who feels
himself imperatively called upon to perform a public duty.

"Dryden never said that," he remarked, "I'll answer for it."

Sir Patrick wheeled round with the help of his ivory cane, and looked
Mr. Delamayn hard in the face.

"Do you know Dryden, Sir, better than I do?" he asked.

The Honorable Geoffrey answered, modestly, "I should say I did. I have
rowed three races with him, and we trained together."

Sir Patrick looked round him with a sour smile of triumph.

"Then let me tell you, Sir," he said, "that you trained with a man who
died nearly two hundred years ago."

Mr. Delamayn appealed, in genuine bewilderment, to the company
generally:

"What does this old gentleman mean?" he asked. "I am speaking of Tom
Dryden, of Corpus. Every body in the University knows _him._"

"I am speaking," echoed Sir Patrick, "of John Dryden the Poet.
Apparently, every body in the University does _not_ know _him!"_

Mr. Delamayn answered, with a cordial earnestness very pleasant to see:

"Give you my word of honor, I never heard of him before in my life!
Don't be angry, Sir. _I'm_ not offended with _you._" He smiled, and took
out his brier-wood pipe. "Got a light?" he asked, in the friendliest
possible manner.

Sir Patrick answered, with a total absence of cordiality: