y."

In a moment Mary was over at the window, undid the catches, and Grantly
scrambled through.

"Grantly!" Mary exclaimed. "What on earth is the matter? You look
awful."

Grantly caught sight of himself in her long glass and agreed with her.

He was covered with mud from head to foot, his overcoat was torn, his
white tie was gone, his beautiful smooth hair, with the neat ripple at
the temples, stood on end in ragged locks; in fact he was as unlike the
"Knut" of ordinary life as he could well be.

"Get into bed, Mary," he said, "you'll catch cold . . ."

Mary, looking very tall in her straight white nightgown, turned slowly
and got into bed. "Now tell me," she said.

Grantly went and sat at the end of her bed and Parker joined him,
cuddling up against him and trying to lick his face. It mattered
nothing to Parker that he was ragged and dirty and disreputable;
nothing that he might have committed any crime in the rogues' calendar.
He was one of the family, he was home, he had evidently been in
trouble, he needed comfort, therefore Parker made much of him. Grantly
felt this and was vaguely cheered.

"Now," said Mary again, and switched off the light; "you can have the
eiderdown if you're cold."

"Well, if you must know," said Grantly, "we went to the Radical meeting
and got chucked out."

"Who went? I thought you were dining with the Rabbiches."

"Not _the_ Rabbiches, _a_ Rabbich, and an insufferable bounder at that;
but he gave us a jolly good dinner, champagne flowed."

"And you got drunk? Oh, Grantly!"

"Well, no; I shouldn't describe it thus crudely--like the Irishman, I
prefer to say 'having drink taken.'"

"Well, 'having drink taken'--then?"

"After we were chucked out for interrupting (it _was_ a rag) we went
back to the Moonstone."

"To the Moonstone," Mary repeated; "why there?"

"Because we dined there, my dear. Young Rabbich gave the feast; it was
all arranged beforehand. We meant to spoil that meeting, but we began
too soon, and they were too strong for us, and . . . he's an ass, and
shouted out all sorts of things he shouldn't--we deserved what we got."

"And then?"

"I'm not very clear what happened then, except that there was the most
tremendous shindy in the street, and fur was flying like anything, and
the next I know was two bobbies had got me, and your friend Gallup
squared them and took me home and put me to bed . . . and here I am."

"Mr Gallup," Mary repeated incred