ether a savage?" As he ended, he
helped himself to another pinch of snuff with a pretty, delicate air
such as a lady would use in taking a comfit; indeed his hand, small and
elegantly shaped, whose whiteness was accentuated by the emerald and
ruby ring upon his finger, needed no very strong effort of fancy to be
taken for a woman's outright. I saw Jack's lip curl and his nostrils
dilate at its very prettiness.

"There be worse things than savages, sir," says he, pointedly.

"Indeed, Sir John, you are very right--do but hearken to the brutes,"
says Mr. Tawnish, with lifted finger, as from the floor above came a
roar of voices singing a merry drinking-catch, with the ring of glasses
and the stamping of spurred heels. "Hark to 'em," he repeated, with a
gesture of infinite disgust; "these are creatures the which, having all
the outward form and semblance of man, yet, being utterly devoid of all
man's finer qualities, live but to quarrel and fight--to eat and drink
and beget their kind--in which they be vastly prolific, for the world is
full of such. To-night it would seem they are in a high good humour,
wherefore they are a trifle more boisterous than usual, indulging
themselves in these howlings and shoutings, and shall presently drink
themselves out of what little wit Dame Nature hath bestowed upon 'em,
and be carted home to bed by their lackeys--pah!"

"How--what?" gasps Jack, while I sat staring (very nearly open-mouthed)
at the cool audacity of the fellow.

"Are you aware, sir," cries Jack, when at last he had regained his
breath, "that the persons you have been decrying are friends of mine,
gallant gentlemen all--aye, sir, damme, and men to boot!--hard-fighting,
hard-riding, hard-drinking, six-bottle gentlemen, sir?"

"I fear me my ignorance of country ways hath led me into a grave error,"
says Mr. Tawnish, with a scarce perceptible shrug of the shoulders;
"upon second thoughts I grant there is about a man who can put down one
throat what should suffice for six, something great."

"Or roomy!" adds Bentley, in a strangling voice.

"We are at side issues," says Jack, very red in the face, "the point
being, that I forbid you my daughter once and for all."

"Might I enquire your very excellent reasons?"

"Plainly, then," returns Jack, hitting himself in the chest again, "the
Lady Penelope Chester must and shall marry a man, sir."

"Yes," nodded Mr. Tawnish, "a man is generally essential in such cases,
I believe