awhile, and then turned round suddenly
just as the dreadful man was about to flip another one at me. He
hastily pretended to be turning over the leaves of his book, but I was
not to be taken in that time. He saw that he had been discovered and no
more lozenges came. Of course I have changed my pew."

"No gentleman would have acted in such a disgraceful manner," said one
of her listeners; "and yet Mr. Lington used to be so respected by
everybody. He seems to have behaved like a little ill-bred schoolboy."

"He behaved like a monkey," said Miss Wepley.

Her unfavourable verdict was echoed in other quarters about the same
time. Groby Lington had never been a hero in the eyes of his personal
retainers, but he had shared the approval accorded to his defunct
parrot as a cheerful, well-dispositioned body, who gave no particular
trouble. Of late months, however, this character would hardly have
been endorsed by the members of his domestic establishment. The stolid
stable-boy, who had first announced to him the tragic end of his
feathered pet, was one of the first to give voice to the murmurs of
disapproval which became rampant and general in the servants' quarters,
and he had fairly substantial grounds for his disaffection. In a burst
of hot summer weather he had obtained permission to bathe in a
modest-sized pond in the orchard, and thither one afternoon Groby had
bent his steps, attracted by loud imprecations of anger mingled with
the shriller chattering of monkey-language. He beheld his plump
diminutive servitor, clad only in a waistcoat and a pair of socks,
storming ineffectually at the monkey which was seated on a low branch
of an apple tree, abstractedly fingering the remainder of the boy's
outfit, which he had removed just out of has reach.

"The ipe's been an' took my clothes;" whined the boy, with the passion
of his kind for explaining the obvious. His incomplete toilet effect
rather embarrassed him, but he hailed the arrival of Groby with relief,
as promising moral and material support in his efforts to get back his
raided garments. The monkey had ceased its defiant jabbering, and
doubtless with a little coaxing from its master it would hand back the
plunder.

"If I lift you up," suggested Groby, "you will just be able to reach
the clothes."

The boy agreed, and Groby clutched him firmly by the waistcoat, which
was about all there was to catch hold of, and lifted, him clear of the
ground. Then, with