pades. Englishmen
don't claim a monopoly of good manners at Tadmor. We see no difference
between an American gentleman and an English gentleman. And as for
speaking English with an accent, the Americans accuse _us_ of doing
that."

He smiled again. "How very absurd!" he said, with a superb compassion
for the benighted Americans. By this time, I suspect he began to feel
that he had had enough of me. He got rid of me with an invitation.

"I shall be glad to receive you at my private residence, and introduce
you to my wife and her niece--our adopted daughter. There is the
address. We have a few friends to dinner on Saturday next, at seven.
Will you give us the pleasure of your company?"

We are all aware that there is a distinction between civility and
cordiality; but I myself never knew how wide that distinction might be,
until Mr. Farnaby invited me to dinner. If I had not been curious (after
what Mr. Hethcote had told me) to see Mrs. Farnaby and her niece,
I should certainly have slipped out of the engagement. As it was, I
promised to dine with Oily-Whiskers.

He put his hand into mine at parting. It felt as moistly cold as a dead
fish. After getting out again into the street, I turned into the first
tavern I passed, and ordered a drink. Shall I tell you what else I did?
I went into the lavatory, and washed Mr. Farnaby off my hand. (N.B.--If
I had behaved in this way at Tadmor, I should have been punished with
the lighter penalty--taking my meals by myself, and being forbidden to
enter the Common Room for eight and forty hours.) I feel I am getting
wickeder and wickeder in London--I have half a mind to join you in
Ireland. What does Tom Moore say of his countrymen--he ought to know, I
suppose? "For though they love women and golden store: Sir Knight, they
love honour and virtue more!" They must have been all Socialists in Tom
Moore's time. Just the place for me.

I have been obliged to wait a little. A dense fog has descended on us
by way of variety. With a stinking coal fire, with the gas lit and the
curtains drawn at half-past eleven in the forenoon, I feel that I am in
my own country again at last. Patience, my friend--patience! I am coming
to the ladies.

Entering Mr. Farnaby's private residence on the appointed day, I became
acquainted with one more of the innumerable insincerities of modern
English life. When a man asks you to dine with him at seven o'clock, in
other countries, he means what he says. In E