ern. These reflections resulted in another
after-dinner conversation to which we are not supposed to listen.

He found Jerry Shorter in a receptive mood, and drew him into Cecil
Grainger's study, where this latter gentleman, when awake, carried on his
lifework of keeping a record of prize winners.

"I believe there is something between Mrs. Spence and Hugh Chiltern,
after all, Jerry," he said.

"By jinks, you don't say so!" exclaimed Mr. Shorter, who had a profound
respect for his friend's diagnoses in these matters. "She was dazzling
to-night, and her eyes were like stars. I passed her in the hall just
now, and I might as well have been in Halifax."

"She fairly withered me when I made a little fun of Chiltern," declared
Farwell.

"I tell you what it is, Reggie," remarked Mr. Shorter, with more
frankness than tact, "you could talk architecture with 'em from now to
Christmas, and nothing'd happen, but it would take an iceberg to write a
book with Hugh and see him alone six days out of seven. Chiltern knocks
women into a cocked hat. I've seen 'em stark raving crazy. Why, there was
that Mrs. Slicer six or seven years ago--you remember--that Cecil
Grainger had such a deuce of a time with. And there was Mrs. Dutton--I
was a committee to see her, when the old General was alive,--to say
nothing about a good many women you and I know."

Mr. Farwell nodded.

"I'm confoundedly sorry if it's so," Mr. Shorter continued, with
sincerity. "She has a brilliant future ahead of her. She's got good blood
in her, she's stunning to look at, and she's made her own way in spite of
that Billycock of a husband who talks like the original Rothschild. By
the bye, Wing is using him for a good thing. He's sent him out West to
pull that street railway chestnut out of the fire. I'm not particularly
squeamish, Reggie, though I try to play the game straight myself--the way
my father played it. But by the lord Harry, I can't see the difference
between Dick Turpin and Wing and Trixy Brent. It's hold and deliver with
those fellows. But if the police get anybody, their get Spence."

"The police never get anybody," said Farwell, pessimistically; for the
change of topic bored him.

"No, I suppose they don't," answered Mr. Shorter, cheerfully finishing
his chartreuse, and fixing his eye on one of the coloured lithographs of
lean horses on Cecil Grainger's wall. "I'd talk to Hugh, if I wasn't as
much afraid of him as of Jim Jeffries. I don't want to