upon to assume her most haughty
and dignified manner for the rest of the way.

Miss Linton's party was in full swing when they arrived. It was an
extremely hilarious party, the interest centering about a fat man in a
dress-suit, with a bath towel around his waist, who was attempting to
distil a forbidden elixir from an ingenious condenser of his own
invention.

The studio, under a grimy skylight, was cluttered with bric-a-brac,
animate and inanimate. A Daibutsu in a gilded shrine dominated one
corner, and a handsome woman in a Manchu coat and swinging ear-rings of
jade held court in another. At sight of the Martel group she laid down
the small silver pipe she was smoking, and swam toward them through a
cloud of incense and tobacco smoke.

"Dear old C. M.! Bless his heart!" she cried, kissing Papa Claude
effusively. Then she nodded good-naturedly to Eleanor, and held out a
welcoming hand to Quin.

"Who is this nice boy?" she asked, her languid black eyes sweeping his
face.

"Allow me to present ex-Sergeant Quinby Graham," said Papa Claude
impressively--"a soldier of whom his friends and his country have every
reason to be proud."

Then, to Quin's utter chagrin, he was conscious of the fact that Papa
Claude was giving, in an audible aside, an account of his prowess that
placed him second only to another sergeant whom the world acclaimed its
chief hero.

"For the Lord's sake, head him off!" he whispered in an agony of
embarrassment to Eleanor. "I didn't do half those things he's telling
about, and besides----"

But it was too late to interfere. Papa Claude, the center of one animated
group after another, was kissing his way through the crowd, whispering
the news as he went--that the guest of the evening was no other than the
distinguished young Graham whom they all doubtless remembered, etc.

Within fifteen minutes Quin found himself the lion of the evening. Even
the fat man and his improvised still were eclipsed by the
counter-attraction. His very earnestness in disclaiming the honors thrust
upon him added enormously to his popularity. The more clumsy and awkward
he was, and the more furiously he blushed and protested, the more
attention he received.

"So naif!" "So perfectly natural!" "Nothing but a boy, and yet think what
he has done!" were phrases heard on every side.

Papa Claude corralled him in the corner with the Daibutsu and pompously
presented each guest in turn. Quin felt smothered by the incense