rning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his
hat--a black castor trimmed with a black feather--rudely among the
dishes on the board.

"I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding," said he, "to be so good as to
tell me the colour of that hat."

Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.

"I could not," said Mr. Wilding, "deny an answer to a question set so
courteously." He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with
the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. "You'll no doubt disagree with
me," said he, "but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as
white as virgin snow."

Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
viciously. "You mistake, Mr. Wilding," said he. "My hat is black."

Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in
a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him
opportunities to indulge it. "Why, true," said he, "now that I come to
look, I perceive that it is indeed black."

And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he
had taught himself.

"You are mistaken again," said he, "that hat is green."

"Indeed?" quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. "What is your own opinion of it,
Nick?"

Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. "Why, since you ask
me," said he, "my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a
gentleman's table." And he took it up, and threw it through the window.

Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate
shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea.
It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action.
But that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.

"Blister me!" he cried. "Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
you'll understand me?"

"If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out
of the house," said Mr. Wilding, "and it would distress me so to treat
a person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose,
although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our
memories will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?"

"I said it was green," answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.