You do--do you?"

"Yes. You must have had some reason."

Mr. Ventnor gazed up at him.

"I'll give you a piece of advice, young cock, and charge you nothing
for it, too: Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies. And here's
another: Go away before you forget yourself again."

The natural stolidity of Bob Pilings face was only just proof against
this speech. He said thickly:

"If you go there again and use my name, I'll Well, it's lucky for you
you're not my age. Anyway I'll relieve you of my acquaintanceship in
future. Good-evening!" and he went to the door. Mr. Ventnor had risen.

"Very well," he said loudly. "Good riddance! You wait and see which boot
the leg is on!"

But Bob Pillin was gone, leaving the lawyer with a very red face, a very
angry heart, and a vague sense of disorder in his speech. Not only
Bob Pillin, but his tender aspirations had all left him; he no longer
dallied with the memory of Mrs. Larne, but like a man and a Briton
thought only of how to get his own back, and punish evildoers. The
atrocious words of his young friend, "It's not the conduct of a
gentleman," festered in the heart of one who was made gentle not merely
by nature but by Act of Parliament, and he registered a solemn vow to
wipe the insult out, if not with blood, with verjuice. It was his duty,
and they should d---d well see him do it!

IV

Sylvanus Heythorp seldom went to bed before one or rose before eleven.
The latter habit alone kept his valet from handing in the resignation
which the former habit prompted almost every night.

Propped on his pillows in a crimson dressing-gown, and freshly shaved,
he looked more Roman than he ever did, except in his bath. Having
disposed of coffee, he was wont to read his letters, and The Morning
Post, for he had always been a Tory, and could not stomach paying a
halfpenny for his news. Not that there were many letters--when a man has
reached the age of eighty, who should write to him, except to ask for
money?

It was Valentine's Day. Through his bedroom window he could see the
trees of the park, where the birds were in song, though he could not
hear them. He had never been interested in Nature--full-blooded men with
short necks seldom are.

This morning indeed there were two letters, and he opened that which
smelt of something. Inside was a thing like a Christmas card, save that
the naked babe had in his hands a bow and arrow, and words coming out
of his mouth: "To be your