tatesman tried to read was
Lady Adela Cunyngham's well-known novel. Do you see? Good business? Then
there's another thing she must absolutely do with her new book. These
woman-suffrage people are splendid howlers and spouters; let her go in
for woman-suffrage thick and thin--and she'll get quoted on a hundred
dozen of platforms. That's the way to do it, you know! Bless you, the
publishers' advertisements are no good at all nowadays!"

Lionel was not paying very much heed; perhaps that was why he rather
indifferently asked Mr. Quirk whether he himself was in favor of
extending the suffrage to women.

"I?" cried Mr. Quirk, with a boisterous horse-laugh. "What do I care
about it? Let them suffer away as much as ever they like!"

"Yes, they're used to that, aren't they?" said Lionel.

"What I want to do is to put Lady Adela up to a dodge or two for getting
her book talked about; that's the important and immediate point, and I
think I can be of some service to her," said Mr. Quirk? and then he
added, more pompously, "I think she is willing to place herself entirely
in my hands."

Happily at this moment there came into the room two or three young
gentlemen, intent upon supper and subsequent cards, who took possession
of the farther end of the table; and Lionel was glad to get up and join
the new-comers, for he felt he could not eat in the immediate
neighborhood of this ill-favored person. He had his poached eggs and a
pint of hock in the company of these new friends; and, after having for
some time listened to their ingenuous talk--which was chiefly a
laudation of Miss Nellie Farren--he lit a cigarette and set out for
home.

So it was Octavius Quirk who was now established as Lady Adela's
favorite? It was he who was shown the first sheets of the new novel; it
was he who was asked to dinner immediately on the return of the family
from Scotland; it was he who was to be Lady Adela's chief counsellor
throughout the next appeal to the British public? And perhaps he advised
Lady Sybil, also, about the best way to get her musical compositions
talked of; and might not one expect to find, in some minor exhibition, a
portrait of Octavius Quirk, Esq., by Lady Rosamund Bourne? It seemed a
gruesome kind of thing to think of these three beautiful women paying
court to that lank-haired, puffy, bilious-looking baboon. He wondered
what Miss Georgie Lestrange thought of it; Miss Georgie had humorous
eyes that could say a good deal. And