of deference to the young lady I raised my hat,
but the youth did not seem to think that outward show of respect was
necessary, and kept his hands in his pockets. Neither did he cease
smoking. His first remark to the lovely lady somewhat startled me.

"Have you got a brass bed in your room?" he asked. The beautiful lady
said she had.

"So've I," said the young man. "They do you rather well, don't they? And
it's only three dollars. How much is that?"

"Four times three would be twelve," said the lady. "Twelve shillings."

The young man was smoking a cigarette in a long amber cigarette-holder.
I never had seen one so long. He examined the end of his
cigarette-holder, and, apparently surprised and relieved at finding a
cigarette there, again smiled contentedly.

The lovely lady pointed at the marble shaft rising above Madison Square.

"That is the tallest sky-scraper," she said, "in New York." I had just
informed her of that fact. The young man smiled as though he were being
introduced to the building, but exhibited no interest.

"_Is_ it?" he remarked. His tone seemed to show that had she said, "That
is a rabbit," he would have been equally gratified.

"Some day," he stated, with the same startling abruptness with which he
had made his first remark, "our war-ships will lift the roofs off those
sky-scrapers."

The remark struck me in the wrong place. It was unnecessary. Already I
resented the manner of the young man toward the lovely lady. It seemed
to me lacking in courtesy. He knew her, and yet treated her with no
deference, while I, a stranger, felt so grateful to her for being what I
knew one with such a face must be, that I could have knelt at her feet.
So I rather resented the remark.

"If the war-ships you send over here," I said doubtfully, "aren't more
successful in lifting things than your yachts, you'd better keep them at
home and save coal!"

Seldom have I made so long a speech or so rude a speech, and as soon as
I had spoken, on account of the lovely lady, I was sorry.

But after a pause of half a second she laughed delightedly.

"I see," she cried, as though it were a sort of a game. "He means
Lipton! We can't lift the cup, we can't lift the roofs. Don't you see,
Stumps!" she urged. In spite of my rude remark, the young man she called
Stumps had continued to smile happily. Now his expression changed to one
of discomfort and utter gloom, and then broke out into a radiant smile.

"I say!" he cr