hooting-goggles
and showing all his teeth like a pointer with a "tic." Captain Voucher,
a gentleman with the vivid colouring of a healthy groom on a cold day,
came up, followed by the Page boys, Willis and Gordon, who shook hands
shyly, enchanted to be on easy terms with the notorious Mr. Siward. And
last of all Tom O'Hara arrived, reeking of the saddle and clinking a
pair of trooper's spurs over the floor--relics of his bloodless Porto
Rico campaign with Squadron A.

It was patent to every man present that the Kemp Ferralls had determined
to ignore Siward's recent foolishness, which indicated that he might
reasonably expect the continued good-will of several sets, the orbits of
which intersected in the social system of his native city. Indeed, the
few qualified to snub him cared nothing about the matter, and it was not
likely that anybody else would take the initiative in being disagreeable
to a young man, the fortunes and misfortunes of whose race were part of
the history of Manhattan Island. Siwards, good or bad, were a matter of
course in New York.

So everybody in the gun-room was civil enough, and he chose Scotch
and found a seat beside Alderdene, who sat biting at a smoky pipe and
fingering a tumbler of smokier Scotch, blinking away like mad through
his shooting-goggles at everybody.

"These little brown snipe you call woodcock," he began; "we bagged nine
brace, d'you see? But of all the damnable bogs and covers--"

"Rotten," said Mortimer thickly; "Ferrall, you're all calf and biceps,
and it's well enough for you to go floundering into bogs--"

"Where do you expect to find native woodcock?" demanded Ferrall,
laughing.

"On the table hereafter," growled Mortimer.

"Oh, go and pot Beverly Plank's tame pheasants," retorted Ferrall
amiably; "Captain Voucher had a blank day, but he isn't kicking."

"Not I," said Voucher; "the sport is capital--if one can manage to hit
the beggars--"

"Oh, everybody misses in snap-shooting," observed Ferrall; "that is,
everybody except Stephen Siward with his unholy left barrel. Crack!
and," turning to Alderdene, "it's like taking money from you,
Blinky--which reminds me that we've time for a little Preference before
dressing."

His squinting lordship declined and took an easier position in his
chair, extending a pair of little bandy legs draped in baggy tweed
knickerbockers and heather-spats. Mortimer, industriously distending his
skin with whiskey, reached for the decan