"It's that Jack-in-the-box Frenchman," muttered the writer. "Go to the
devil!" he called out.

The door opened.

"You have an original way of receiving visitors!" drawled a languid
voice, and the glance of the surprised poet fell upon Edward Mauville.
"Really, I don't know whether to come in or not," continued the latter
at the threshold.

"I beg your pardon," murmured Straws. "I thought it was a--"

"Creditor?" suggested Mauville, with an amused smile. "I know the
class. Don't apologize! I am intruding. Quite a family party!" he went
on, his gaze resting upon Celestina and the interrupted repast.

With his elegant attire, satin waistcoat and fine ruffles, he seemed
out of place in the attic nook of the Muse; a lordling who had
wandered by mistake into the wrong room. But he bore himself with the
easy assurance of a man who could adapt himself to any surroundings;
even to Calliope's shabby boudoir!

"My dear," remarked the disconcerted bard, "get a chair for Mr.
Mauville. Or--I beg your pardon--would you mind sitting on the bed?
Won't you have some wine? Celestina, bring another glass."

But the girl only stood and stared at the dark, courtly being who thus
unexpectedly had burst in upon them.

"There isn't any more," she finally managed to say. "You've got the
only glass there is, please!"

"Dear me; dear me!" exclaimed Straws. "How glasses do get broken! I
have so few occasions to use them, too, for I don't very often have
visitors."

"You are surprised to see me?" continued Mauville, pleasantly, seating
himself on the edge of the bed. "Go on with your supper. You don't
mind my smoking while you eat?"

[Illustration]

"No; the odor of onions is a little strong, isn't it?" laughed the
other. "Rather strange, by the by, some of nature's best restoratives
should be rank and noisome, while her poisons, like the Upas tree, are
often sweet-smelling and agreeable?"

"Yes," commented the land baron; "we make the worst faces over the
medicines that do us the most good."

"I presume," said Straws, delighted at the prospect of an argument,
and forgetting his curiosity over the other's visit in this brief
interchange of words, "nature but calls our attention to the fact that
we may know our truest friends are not those with the sweetest
manners."

"Heaven forbid!" remarked Mauville. "But how are you getting on with
your column? A surfeit of news and gossip, I presume? What a busy
fellow you are, to be sure