hmidt was silent, and took the Wynne Madeira with honest appreciation,
while the young man ate his dinner, amazed at the display of bad
manners.

Then the girl beside him said in a half-whisper: "Fiddlesticks! Why do
people say that? The violin is hard to play, I hear. Why do men say
fiddlesticks?"

De Courval did not know, and Aunt Gainor asked, "What is that,
Margaret?"

"I was saying that the violin must be hard to play."

"Ah, yes, yes," returned the hostess, puzzled, while Schmidt smiled, and
the talk fell upon mild gossip and the last horse-race--and so on to
more perilous ground.

"About lotteries," said Josiah, "I have bought thee a ticket, Margaret,
number 1792--the lottery for the college of Princeton."

"A nice Quaker you are," said Miss Wynne. "I see they forbid lotteries
in Massachusetts. The overseers of meeting will be after you."

"I should like to see them. A damn pretty business, indeed. Suppose thee
were to win the big prize, child." He spoke the intolerable language
then becoming common among Friends. "Thee could beat Gainor in gowns."

"I should not be let to wear them." Alas! she saw herself in brocades
and lutestring underskirts. The young man ignorantly shared her
distress.

"There is small chance of it, I fear," said Gainor. "A hundred lottery
chances I have bought, and never a cent the richer." And so the talk
went on, Langstroth abusing all parties, Schmidt calmly neutral, the
young people taking small part, and regarding the lottery business as
one of Josiah's annoying jokes--no one in the least believing him.

At last the cloth was off the well-waxed mahogany table, a fresh pair of
decanters set before the hostess, and each guest in turn toasted.

Langstroth had been for a time comfortably unamiable. He had said
abusive things of all parties in turn, and now Schmidt amused himself by
adding more superlative abuse, while Gainor Wynne, enjoying the game,
fed Langstroth with exasperating additions of agreement. The girl,
knowing them all well, silently watched the German's face, his zest in
annoying Josiah unexpressed by even the faintest smile--a perfect
actor. De Courval, with less full understanding of the players, was at
times puzzled, and heard in silence Schmidt siding with Josiah. "It was
most agreeable, my dear," said Mistress Gainor next day to one of her
favorites, Tacy Lennox. "Josiah should of right be a gentleman. He has
invented the worst manners ever you saw, my dear