im"--Lord John treated such ignorance as
irritating--"must of course be this beastly thing in the 'Journal.'"

Mr. Bender proclaimed, on the other hand, his incapacity to seize such
connections. "What's the matter with the beastly thing?"

"Why, aren't you aware that the stiffest bit of it is a regular dig at
you?"

"If you call _that_ a regular dig you can't have had much experience of
the Papers. I've known them to dig much deeper."

"I've had _no_ experience of such horrid attacks, thank goodness; but do
you mean to say," asked Lord John with the surprise of his own delicacy,
"that you don't unpleasantly feel it?"

"Feel it where, my dear sir?"

"Why, God bless me, such impertinence, everywhere!"

"All over me at once?"--Mr. Bender took refuge in easy humour. "Well,
I'm a large man--so when I want to feel so much I look out for something
good. But what, if he suffers from the blot on his ermine--ain't that
what you wear?--does our friend propose to do about it?"

Lord John had a demur, which was immediately followed by the
apprehension of support in his uncertainty. Lady Sandgate was before
them, having reached them through the other room, and to her he at once
referred the question. "What _will_ Theign propose, do you think, Lady
Sandgate, to do about it?"

She breathed both her hospitality and her vagueness. "To 'do'----?"

"Don't you know about the thing in the 'Journal'--awfully offensive all
round?"

"There'd be even a little pinch for _you_ in it," Mr. Bender said to
her--"if you were bent on fitting the shoe!"

Well, she met it all as gaily as was compatible with a firm look at her
elder guest while she took her place with them. "Oh, the shoes of such
monsters as that are much too big for poor _me!_" But she was more
specific for Lord John. "I know only what Grace has just told me; but
since it's a question of footgear dear Theign will certainly--what you
may call--take his stand!"

Lord John welcomed this assurance. "If I know him he'll take it
splendidly!"

Mr. Bender's attention was genial, though rather more detached. "And
what--while he's about it--will he take it particularly _on?_"

"Oh, we've plenty of things, thank heaven," said Lady Sandgate, "for a
man in Theign's position to hold fast by!"

Lord John freely confirmed it. "Scores and scores--rather! And I will
say for us that, with the rotten way things seem going, the fact may
soon become a real convenience."

Mr. Bender seeme